A Haunting of the Mind
by OneHorseShay
Summary: On a cold, dark abandoned station left by an ancient alien species, terrors and old ghosts from the past await the crew of the USS Tori. Takes place in the Star Trek: The Original Series Prime-Universe, 'Fusion Fic'.
1. Chapter 1

Hello dear readers. I have another little piece for your enjoyment that the Muse insisted on writing over the last few weeks. Don't worry, I'm still working on my other pieces as this one is practically done.

A few notes for this story, this is inspired by my other work, 'Galaxy Wars: Fight for the Federation', but a pure 'Star Trek' piece that takes place in the Prime-Universe of the Original Series and not the Kelvinverse with interpretations of characters primarily from Victorious with occasional ones from Dan Schneider's other works. In addition, some parts are inspired and borrowed from Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.'s Star Fleet Universe.

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A Haunting of the Mind  
By OneHorseShay  
Disclaimer: Don't Own, Don't Sue. For God's sake, don't sue. Respective properties owned by Paramount/Viacom and license holder Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.  
Rating: T Language, Violence  
Summary: On a cold, dark abandoned station left by an ancient alien species, terrors and old ghosts from the past await the crew of the USS Tori. Takes place in the Prime-Universe 'Fusion Fic'.

Chapter 1

Captain's Log, Captain Fredrick Benson Commanding, Stardate: 4211.4 (December 29, 2267): _The Tori is on her way towards an abandon space station that is believed to have belonged to the Old Kings, an interstellar power that decades before Humans and Vulcans made first contact, used to occupy much of Klingon space and western half of the Federation. We're to pick up a survey team left there two weeks ago that was to study the facility in the hopes of gleaning any information about the mysterious civilization as we know only bits and pieces through scant historical records from the Klingons and little contact they had with Vulcans before they left to parts unknown._

 _The Bureau of Propulsion would much rather have the team stay longer, but the system's star has gone nova, throwing out most of its outer shell of gases to leave a white dwarf and destabilizing the rest of the system that is turning into planetary nebula, so we've been ordered to pick the survey team up for their safety._

 _I can't help but be more than curious about visiting the system in observing the initial formation of a planetary nebula and finding out any information about the Old Kings. So little is known about them, but what we do know has fueled much speculation of alien visitation on Earth before official first contact with the Vulcans over the last few decades due to finding out their apparent resemblance to reported alien contacts during the Twentieth-century known as the 'Greys'._

 _However, the scientific curiosity I have must be tempered with the potential complication of a simple pickup and observation of a stellar phenomenon. The star system is fairly close to the newly institutionalized 'Neutral Zone' with the Klingon Empire after the Four Day War that goes without mentioning ended with the intervention of the Organians, raising the possibility of Klingon interference if they've become aware of the station's existence. I don't believe it can be overstated about how much the Klingons desire to learn about their old 'masters' since they were used as a subject race by them before their disappearance._

 _On a livelier note, I've been informed that a member of the survey team is the sister of my chief of security, Lieutenant Katrina Vega. I briefly met her years ago a few times, particularly during my sister-in-law's graduation from high school. I'm glad that one of my crew will have a happy reunion._

Bridge  
USS Tori (NCC-1725)  
Constitution-Class (Bonhomme Richard-Subclass)  
In route to the 'Old King' Station  
Sector 2007

Captain Fredrick 'Freddie' Benson sat in his command chair at the center of the bridge as he watched the growing sight of the various shades of blue and white atmospheric streams gas giant with a thin shell of red stellar gases that spherically spread out from the center of the system filling the view screen as the starship approached at low impulse speed. The gas giant was drawing the gases passing them towards it in a spectacular whirled wind of various color gases that mixed to start turning part of the atmosphere purple.

He idly commented to his chief science officer, Commander Robert 'Robbie' Shapiro to his right at the science station, "It's a beautiful sight, isn't it Shapiro?"

The curly haired young man had his eyes glued to the various monitor screens displaying the streaming data they were receiving about the system, apparently too enthralled to answer his captain.

Benson smiled and shook his head, understanding the fascination since he had graduated from UW at Seattle with a science degree and rose to command through the science branch (straddling and partially cross trained into electronic engineering several times so far in his moderately short career) instead of the usual command track.

Lieutenant Catarina 'Cat' Valentine, a lovely redhead Caitian, giggled from her communication station behind Captain Benson at her open secret boyfriend enthralled at his station.

Benson glanced over his right shoulder and shared a smile to the always bubbling young lady that kept levity to the sometime tense moments on a starship.

Lieutenant (J.G.) Rex Powers called out from the Helm station, "Hey Robbie, the Captain asked you something."

Robbie tore his eyes away and looked over his shoulder, "What?"

The Captain softly sighed, showing far more patience with his helm officer than perhaps he professionally should extend, but he was a capable officer that was still adjusting to being 'real'. He smiled towards Robbie and asked, "I was saying, 'It's a beautiful sight, isn't it?'"

The curly haired science officer nodded his head and answered, "Yes, really beautiful. It's amazing being this up close to the initial formation of a planetary nebula."

"It definitely is…" He turned his head to look to his navigator's back, Lt. Commander André Harris. "…but is it going to cause us any navigation problems?"

Harris shook his head and answered, understanding that Benson was speaking to him, "Not really. Just diffused gases and gravitational eddies with the star's collapse and shifting of planetary orbits. We should be able to park right into orbit with the station without a hitch."

"Good, but what about the station? How would it fair in orbit since the collapse?"

Trina sitting two stations down from Robbie's science station looked up and turned in her seat in the direction of the center of the bridge, clearly concerned with the answer.

André shrugged a shoulder and answered, "The planet is massive enough with its own generated magnetic field to protect it from the brunt of the collapse without ripping away the atmosphere and tossing the station away."

Benson caught from the corner of his eye Trina's concerned expression, giving her a sympathetic smile then remarked, "Well, let's say hello and make sure everything is okay…" He slightly swiveled his seat to his right. He politely ordered Cat, "Lieutenant, signal the station of our arrival and we'll beam them over at their convenience."

"'kay, 'kay," she politely answered with her fingers already dancing across the console before he even finished the order.

Benson suppressed another sigh at hearing another questionable lack of professional demeanor. However, he understood that it wasn't meant as any form of disrespect towards him. She was just a friendly person, something quite ironic since she was a felineoid and cats on Earth weren't exactly the friendliest of creatures from his personal experience. It was probably the reason he was more of a dog person.

The bridge waited in relative silence other than the standard background hum, beeps and communications from other parts of the ship of the routine operations throughout the vessel.

Cat frowned as she adjusted her ear piece in her left ear, typed on her control panel and the end of her prehensile tail with a black fuzzy end lazily waved back and forth over the top of the backrest of her seat.

Trina was watching the petite communications officer with growing concern as she noticed the frustration on her face.

The redhead finally commented with a slight pout, "I'm not receiving any response."

Benson slightly turned in his seat to look over his right shoulder and asked, "Is it due to interference? With the gravitational settling, it could interfere with subspace."

The Caitian shook her head, slightly pouting as she answered, "No sir. This close to the station, I could easily compensate for any interference, but I'm just not receiving any acknowledgement."

Benson slightly frowned, shifting his weight to his left and resting his elbow on the armrest of the command seat. He mumbled to himself, "They could be busy trying to get as much research time as they could before we arrived and someone's not manning the communication station."

Trina spoke up in a restrained tone of her potential worry, "Tori probably has her head in the computers just like Robbie, so…"

The rest of the bridge crew turned curious gazes to the security chief at the mention of the name.

She passed over them a quick glance and clarified, "My sister is named Victoria; we call her Tori."

Benson smiled and shook his head, appreciating the humor. "Right… hopefully is just as mundane as being busy. I doubt someone is just sitting at a portable comm." He looked to the Helm/Navigation stations and ordered, "As soon as we're close enough, take us into a standard orbit."

Harris plotted out the orbit trajectory and Rex adjusted the ship's velocity to slide right into a standard orbit around the gas giant of similar size to Jupiter. At the approach they had made to the planet and the position of the orbiting station, they were on the opposite side of the planet and would take a few minutes to round it to catch up.

Over those few minutes, Robbie turned the short range sensors towards the planet and Trina kept her attention on Robbie, trying to pick up any body language about what he was monitoring.

Benson called out to Robbie to break the tension, "Anything interesting Commander?"

"It's just a standard Class-A gas giant that wasn't massive enough to start nuclear fusion during its formation, but due to its mass, it is drawing a bit of the stellar gases to it. All the colliding of gases is causing the upper atmosphere to ionize… wait, I'm picking up the station, what the…"

He got up from his seat and hunched over to look into the sensor hood. He rolled the control knob on the side to adjust the resolution of the sensor readings.

Benson called out in concern, "Robbie?"

"The station's orbit is decaying, being drawn into the outer atmosphere."

"On screen."

Robbie reached over and hit a switch, causing the view screen to magnify a portion of the image of the outer edge of the planet to show the grey station. It was a fairly straightforward and modular design with a central hub hexagon with three large cylinder spokes about two hundred meters long sticking out at equilateral distances from each other with a square module attached to the central hub between each of them. There was an outer ring that was beyond the square modules of the central hub and attached the cylinder spokes to each other then past that, two large rectangular modules attached to each side of the cylinders.

The station was rotating and pushing away the surrounding stellar gases and the planet's atmosphere in a near perfect circle and half cylinder under it, making a visible indentation in the streams of gases.

Benson got up from his seat and walked over to rest his hands on the guardrail separating the inner and outer ring of the bridge to stand behind Robbie. "Why is there a void of gases around the station?"

"It's generating an anti-gravitational field, similar to the space-time distortion fields we use for sublight travel and taking off and landing on planets, but much more powerful."

The captain glanced over to the view screen and commented, "But you said the orbit is decaying."

"It is. The stellar gases are pushing it towards the planet as they're being drawn to it. I guess they found the station keeping controls and are trying to compensate, but it isn't enough."

Trina got up from her station and walked next to Robbie then demanded, "Then why aren't they responding to our hails? Why haven't they abandoned the station in their shuttlecraft?"

Robbie licked his lips and fumbled for a moment before answering, "They might be a little busy trying to keep the station from falling into the planet."

Benson cut them off before any argument could start, knowing Trina's combative nature—which made her a great security chief, "We can debate later. The priority is to get them out then we can ask them why when they're safely onboard." He turned to the Helm/Navigation stations and called out to Rex, "Keep us out of the gases, but get us into transporter range."

He walked to his command seat and pressed a white button on the right armrest. "Transporter room, standby to beam out survey team. Commander Shapiro will be feeding you biosigns in a few moments."

The science officer disagreed, "I wouldn't recommend the transporters. The ionization of the gases around the station may cause too much interference, even at close range. It's like going through an ion storm."

He turned his head to look at the pair at the science station and sighed, rubbing his chin in the process, "Scrambled molecules…" He briefly recalled the classified captain's log from Captain James T. Kirk about him and a number of his senior staff beaming through an ion storm with quite interesting results, arriving in a parallel universe that could best described as 'evil' counterparts. He dropped his hand and ordered, "Find them anyway to make sure they're okay."

Robbie nodded his head and turned back to the sensor hood, switching the ship's scanners to bioreadings.

As he performed his sensor sweep, Benson looked back to the forward stations and ordered, "Lieutenant Powers, contact hanger deck to prep a shuttle then report down there outfitted for landing party duty. We're going to go get them."

Rex nodded his head and pressed a few control studs, speaking down to the hanger deck.

The captain looked over his left shoulder and ordered, "Valentine, keep trying to hail them—"

"Ah, oh…" Robbie interrupted with a deep dreadful voice.

Benson walked around the guardrail and asked, "What do you mean 'ah, oh'?"

Trina didn't wait for an answer and pushed Robbie aside to look into the sensor hood. She adjusted the rolling knob as she studied the hidden display.

The science officer grabbed the top of his chair for balance, looking a little peeved that she would shove him aside then looked to his captain. "I'm only reading one life sign."

The gold command shirt wearing young man drew a sharp breath and retorted, "It's a five person survey team."

"I only saw one before Trina pushed me aside…" He glanced down to the red mini-dress uniformed security officer hogging his instrument console then looked back to Benson. "…and it's Klingon."

Benson's jaw squared, hearing that his concerns turned out to come true and sharply turned to look at Valentine. "Valentine, sound general quarters—"

Trina practically spun as she turned away from the sensor hood and shouted, "Wait captain!"

The security officer's shout startled Cat, causing her to pause from sounding the alert, and Benson knotted his brow and turned a curious look to Trina.

The Centauran woman cleared her throat, seeing that she was on the spot with most of the bridge crew looking at her for basically countermanding the captain's order. She was used to the spotlight as she had a minor acting career before joining the service, but felt a shiver of nervousness with the attention.

"Lieutenant?" Benson pressed, wanting an explanation but not being rude or short with her.

"The life sign is female, so… it's probably my sister."

If the regular background sounds of the various pieces of equipment weren't functioning, one could have heard a pin drop with the crew remaining silent.

He raised a surprised eyebrow and asked, "Your sister?"

She remained silent again, turning a glare to the rest of the crew looking at her. They seemed to have the good sense to turn their attention back to their stations.

Benson observed the change then looked to her with a sympathetic gaze. He walked up the step and took her aside a few paces back to the secondary weapons/defense station to speak to her away from the ears of the rest of the bridge crew. "Trina?"

She sighed and quickly answered, "My sister isn't Centauran, she's Klingon and obviously adopted."

The handsome young starship captain blinked, shocked by the revelation. He had met Tori a few times when he was a teenager during visits to Los Angeles when he went with his late wife to visit her sister, an attractive young woman. He hadn't given it a second thought she wasn't a Centauran, but then again there isn't any obvious physical differences between Humans/Centaurans and Klingons.

However, he was still stunned by the revelation and uttered, "She's a Klingon?"

Trina glanced away for a moment then looked back to him and answered in a hushed voice, "Yes… dad was in the service—it's a long story that I don't have time to tell you because she's on a station diving into a gas giant to be crushed like a tin can."

Benson sighed and studied her eyes for several moments then remarked, "Yes… an Old King station on the raggedy edge of the Federation just one sector away from Klingon space with the only member of a five member survey team registering on our life sensors on the station happens to be Klingon…"

"My sister isn't a traitor," she practically growled at him with a sharp gaze that would have been disrespectful to a superior officer.

He calmly answered, not taking it as disrespectful, but defending her sister, "I didn't say she was, but if it was anyone other than your sister, that wouldn't set off warning bells with you with these circumstances? You wouldn't be a little suspicious being chief of security… or having to sit in that center seat?"

The older Vega sister clenched her jaw and one of the few times in her life she bit her tongue, knowing that she couldn't refute his point. It was damn suspicious under the circumstances and something her sister had faced through her entire career as tensions with the Klingons grew every year.

His expression softened that turned into a sympathetic expression then glanced over his right shoulder but keeping an eye on Trina, "Powers, is that shuttle ready?"

"Yes sir."

He kept his eyes on Trina as he continued, "Carry out my previous order. Valentine, contact sickbay and the barracks for Doctor West and four Marines to report to the hanger deck. We're on a rescue and recovery mission."

"Yes sir," the redhead answered and turned to her board to carry out his orders.

Trina gave him a thankful smile then stated, "I'd like to accompany the landing party."

Benson paused for a moment then called out, "Make that three marines Valentine. We'll need the seat for Lieutenant Vega."

"Yes sir."

He turned and headed for the turbolift in the back left corner of the bridge with the security officer following him. He called out, "Shapiro, you have the conn."

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Author's Note: I hope this has teased you enough to stick around for a spooky little story for the Halloween season. Also, yes, I did make Tori a Klingon, but this is TOS, so they don't have forehead ridges and are really indistinguishable from Humans. However, I'm not going with the 'Star Trek: Enterprise' explanation because that's just racist to me an explanation.

Drew Roy as Rex Powers


	2. Chapter 2

Hello dear readers, I hope you're doing well and that you enjoyed the first chapter of my story. I'm doing okay for the moment.

I usually don't delve into my personal life, but I thought you as readers should know why the next few weeks I'll be hindered from posting updates on a number of my stories that I'm close to completing. I got hit hard by Hurricane Matthew, so much so that I'm going to have to get a new place and been out of work for a week—ouch. I've been busy this last week packing and home hunting, but I and my family are physically fine. I have electricity, food and water, so I'm far better off than a number of my fellow citizens in the local area.

One other note, I goofed about where Freddie went to school in the first chapter. I had a line that he went to Starfleet Academy, but intended to have him graduate from the University of Washington at Seattle, so I changed it in the first chapter.

Anyway, on to the story.

Rating: T

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Chapter 2

Hanger Deck  
USS Tori (NCC-1725)  
Constitution-Class (Bonhomme Richard-Subclass)  
Sector 2007

Rex sat in the far right pilot seat as he was going over the last pre-flight checks of the shuttle. In the back seats of the shuttle sat three Federation Marines in full grey clamshell combat armor that covered their respective chests, shoulders, upper arms, forearms, back of hands, lower torsos, thighs and shins over black fatigues. They carried phaser carbines and were ready for a fight. The captain clearly didn't believe that 'red shirt' Star Fleet security was enough for this mission.

Doctor Jadelyn 'Jade' West slightly ducked her head while stepping into the shuttle wearing her black field jacket, sparing only enough time to grab it to throw over her blue minidress uniform and a utility belt to hold her palm phaser and communicator. The belt had a Star Fleet delta on the silver belt buckle that loosely hung on her hips in addition of course to her medical kit with the strap over her head to rest across her left shoulder and resting against her right hip.

She took one glance over to the compliment of the shuttle and commented, "At least I'm not late…" She walked over to have a seat in the chair behind Rex, taking a moment to glance over her shoulder and remark with a smile to the marines, "Oh, so the marines are finally coming out to play?"

Corporal Anderson, a young black man with closely cut hair, and Lance Corporal Roma Isabe, a young Cygnan woman with her natural very light blue skin fainter than even Andorians, silver short and straight hair just shoulder length and jet black eyes without any discernible pupils responded with a small laugh at her remark, knowing that as sweet as she could be, she was also probably the scariest thing on the ship. In addition, most of the ship's marine detachment knew a few other tidbits about the good doctor that instantly garnered her respect other than due her rank warranted. The third marine, a young Private Carter with sandy blonde hair and newly assigned to the Tori, looked confused as to why his fellow marines would laugh at what could be construed as mocking them with how little use they had aboard the ship other than training and pointlessly guarding positions on the ship, especially coming from a Fleeter.

The pilot joked with his urban accent, "You think we would take off without you Wicked Witch?"

Jade shook her head and sighed, "I may not be able to rip your arms off anymore, but I'm sure I could figure something out to do to you."

Rex tightened his smile and focused on finishing his preflight checklist.

Trina was the next to step inside the shuttle, having taken the time to change into a red uniform shirt and field trousers from her red minidress uniform. She had on a utility belt and thigh holster along with her black field jacket with red stripes going over her shoulders. She was carrying a phaser carbine and had a tactical tricorder slung over her shoulder.

Captain Benson followed her, wearing his field jacket with gold command stripes over the shoulders, utility belt with thigh holster for his phaser sidearm and carrying a phaser carbine. He took a seat in the other pilot's seat, setting the phaser next to his seat then strapped himself into it. He tapped a control and the doors closed.

If Carter had any low opinion of Fleeters in general, it certainly didn't apply to the captain as under the Star Fleet insignia patch on his right shoulder was the Special Forces Badge, only earned by the elite going into Prime Teams and Marine commandos. He still found it a little hard to believe that someone originally from the science division could have earned such a thing.

Jade raised an eyebrow, curious as to why there was so much firepower. On most landing parties, it was her, Freddie and Robbie with maybe a Star Fleet security crewman or two, but not taking marines and this heavily armed. She only carried a palm phaser more than half the time and they phaser sidearms. She called out to Benson with a bit of a laugh, "Freddie, what's going on? I thought this was a rescue mission. Why is everyone armed to the teeth?"

It was a breach of protocol for the doctor to address the captain by his first name, but they had a _familial_ relationship that most of the crew was aware and were smart enough not to make any comment.

Benson glanced over his shoulder and answered, "We're reading only one lifeform on the station when there should be five and we're far too close to the Klingon border to take any chances."

The doctor nodded her head and wondered out loud, "You think the Klingons attacked it?" She didn't wait for an answer and looked to her left and slightly behind as Trina was seated one seat behind her in the neighboring row. She asked her with a concern tone, knowing that Tori was a member of the survey team, "Do you have any idea who the lifeform is?"

Trina was about to answer, but Benson beat her to it, "We believe it's Lieutenant Commander Vega due to the… unique biosign."

Corporal Anderson spoke up, "What do you mean by 'unique' biosign sir?"

The captain turned his gaze to Trina, almost apologetically having to reveal the information, then answered, "She's Klingon."

After a beat, the marines looked to Benson with stunned expressions.

Carter was the first to speak and asked with almost a stutter, "Ah… sir, did you say Klingon?"

Benson nodded his head and answered, "Yes. Commander Vega is Klingon."

The sandy blonde haired private muttered in disbelief, "When did Star Fleet let Klingons in? How could a Klingon be in Star Fleet?"

Trina looked over her shoulder to eyeball the private and answered in a curt tone, "When they're Alpha-Centauran citizens."

The marine clamped his mouth shut, not wanting to get into an argument with an officer even if she was a Fleeter.

Jade's eyes had darted back and forth among the trio, trying to fathom that she had heard correctly, then utter with a wide eyed expression, "Holy chizz… you're not joking. Tori's a Klingon?"

Trina deeply sighed then looked over and answered, "Yes, Tori is a Klingon."

The doctor shook her head, blinked and uttered again, "Tori is a Klingon?"

The older Vega sister knotted her brow and glared, practically growling out a warning, "This isn't the time Jade."

Jade shook her head and retorted in a practically flabbergasted tone, "Isn't the time? You're telling me after all these years, you lied to us? That she's not really your sister and she pretended to be Human-Centauran?"

The security officer snapped, "She's my sister as much as Carly was your sister."

Jade clamped her mouth shut and returned an equally harsh glare.

Trina took in a sharp breath, realizing that she may have crossed a line and not just with Jade. She cautiously turned her head to look at the back of the captain's head.

Benson took a breath then calmly pointed out that was clearly an order, "You can have your… discussion later." He looked to Rex asked, "Are we ready to go?"

Jade and Trina remained quiet, one trying to suppress the opening up of an old wound while the other one was still angry yet relieved that she didn't piss off her captain.

The helm officer was aware enough to realize even he shouldn't attempt any kind of humorous remark and simply nodded his head and answered, "I just finished the last flight check."

The captain tapped a control to open a channel to the shuttle traffic controller. "Flight control, this is the captain. We are ready to depart."

"Acknowledge captain, you are clear for take-off."

The hanger doors opened, revealing the blackness of space with a whirl of stellar gases as the ship's stern was directed toward the core side of the system in its orbit at the moment.

Rex engaged the repulsers and the shuttlecraft lifted off the deck then glided out of the end of ship. He eased towards port to round around the ship then forward to pass the secondary hull and towards the station.

Benson monitored the approach, the gravitational eddies of the planet and the station and the whirling of stellar gases. He pressed the controls to raise the shuttle's shields.

The shuttle would take about a minute to reach the station, taking into account the various challenges approaching the station, so Benson took the opportunity to brief Jade and the marines. He swiveled his chair to partially face them and stated, "Here's the situation: we were supposed to pick up a five-member survey team, but there has been no response and there is only one lifesign aboard, presumably Commander Vega's, and the station's orbit is decaying. We don't have much time to get her and find out what happened to the rest of the team. They are the priority and any scientific and technical knowledge they've gained while here is a distant second."

Corporal Anderson passed a concerned gaze to his fellow marines then asked, "Sir, do we have any idea what we're walking into?"

"No. It could be any number of things: life support failure, something biological they've run across or—"

Private Carter eagerly interrupted, "Abduction? We're pretty close to the border as you pointed out sir and the Klingons would love to get their hands on more 'Old Kings' technology."

"It's a likely possibility," Benson reluctantly admitted.

"And the only apparent survivor is Klingon?" he followed up with a clear suspicion to his voice.

Captain Benson was about to comment, but Rex called out over his shoulder as they neared the station, "It might be a little bumpy going through the grav-field."

Benson swiveled back in his seat and the passengers held onto the armrests of their respective seats. Jade swallowed and her knuckles turned even whiter as she pushed down the minor fear she had bubbling up from her stomach.

The shuttle slightly rocked as they hit the warped space.

Benson glanced over his shoulder to look at Jade, catching her gaze.

The doctor tightened her smile, trying to show that she was fine, but she was clearly uneasy with the rough ride.

His expression turned sympathetic, seeing that she still hadn't gotten over her uneasiness of riding shuttles. He hated to have her even ride in one again, but he needed her.

She gave him a wink to show him she would be fine.

The shuttle passed through the increasing heavy repulsion as if it was going through molasses, but was able to stop just in front of the shuttle doors. Benson started tapping at the controls to signal for access the shuttle bay doors and several seconds later, the station responded to give him access to the doors. He took another few moments to perform a sensor sweep to confirm that there weren't any lifesigns in the shuttle bay before sending the command to open the doors.

The shuttle bay doors opened, revealing a cleared hanger other than another standard Federation administrative shuttle identical, other than the markings, to the shuttle the landing party from the Tori was traveling.

Rex eased the shuttle into the hanger bay then gently landed several meters from the other shuttle on a clearly marked landing pad, presumably an elevator to lower craft down for maintenance in the below deck.

The doors closed behind them and the sensor displayed that the bay was repressurizing. After several moments, the bay was pressurized to near standard atmospheric pressure for most class-O/M/N worlds. Benson took another scan with the shuttle's sensors, trying to determine if there were any biological hazards despite anything in the shuttle bay having experienced hard vacuum for nearly a minute.

The sensors did display a higher than normal radiation signature from the station's power plant at its heart, but nothing within harmful levels. Once he was satisfied that nothing endangered them, he opened the shuttle's doors and the three marines fanned out to secure the surrounding area, one on each side of the exit and Anderson taking point ready to engage any target that might appear in their sights. Benson followed out to stand beside Anderson with Trina, Jade and Rex bringing up the rear to form a second triangle with the marines' perimeter.

"Lifeform scan," Benson crisply ordered, keeping his gaze down the sights of the phaser carbine.

Corporal Roma Isabe lowered her carbine and pulled her tactical tricorder with her left hand and drew her phaser pistol with her right hand. She took a quick sweep with the tricorder and spoke, "No lifeforms within one hundred meters."

Jade followed up with her own tricorder scan, "Not reading any biohazards. No bacterial, viral or atmospheric containment within the immediate area."

Benson answered as he swept again with his carbine, instinctively not trusting the sensors that they were alone in the shuttle bay and perhaps doubting his senses of the bay being opened to space. "The shuttle sensors said the lifeform reading was in one of the spokes—which would be outside the range of the tricorders. West, Vega and Carter, you're with me to find her. Powers, you, Anderson and Isabe get to the ops center and secure it. Check to see if there are any sensor or personal logs to find out what happened."

Jade asked incredulously, "You want us to split up?"

Benson looked over his shoulder and gave a questioning gaze.

She snorted a breath and almost mockingly asked, "Abandoned and ancient station that looks like it's about to fall apart, mysterious disappearances, one apparent lone survival and you want to split us up?"

The marines kept steady expressions, but Power snorted out a laugh at seeing her point.

The starship captain sighed, understanding her hesitation as she loved her tri-video horror films and knew the rules for surviving them. However, this wasn't a horror movie, but a military rescue mission… where everyone was armed to the teeth to give any 'monster' a rude awakening if it decided to pick a fight.

"No choice. We need to find Commander Vega, but I can't afford someone turning the life support off for us if intruders are onboard and somehow blocking our sensor scans."

Jade reluctantly nodded, conceding to his points.

Benson looked to Anderson and ordered, "Lead the way corporal."

"Yes sir," the marine snapped then began leading the group towards the center door at the end of the shuttle bay as there were three doors accessing the departing station, passing the other shuttle in the process.

Isabe paused for a moment as she noticed something on the shuttlecraft and called out, "Scorch marks."

The others stopped and glanced to the shuttle, but remaining on guard, seeing that there were a number of black scorch marks and pitted spots on the front surface of the shuttle.

The silver haired marine took a quick scan of it with her tricorder and remarked, "This is phaser fire… a mix of heat and disruptor settings."

Benson moved to the shuttle, careful to place his hand on the scorch spots. He didn't feel any residual heat, so the shots must have happened a while ago to cool off. He noticed something from the corner of his left eye. He turned around and looked at the other end of the bay, noticing a number of spots on the inside of the hanger door on the left side of the center. He turned his head back to the shuttle then looked towards the center door they were originally heading. It dawned on him what could explain the shot pattern.

"They were attempting to repel a boarding action. They were positioned at the middle door and whoever they were fighting took cover on the right front side of the shuttle." He motioned towards the hanger door. "They hit the shuttle and past it to the door during the fire fight."

Carter asked the rhetorical question, "So someone was trying to take the station?"

"It would look that way, but…" Benson glanced back to the middle door. "…why would they turn around and abandon it and leave a survivor?"

Anderson offered with a lazy shrug of his shoulder, "They knew we were coming and they knew they wouldn't be any match against a heavy cruiser? They simply didn't have time to get everything before leaving?"

The captain looked towards the center door to the inner parts of the station and just studied it for a few moments, remarking in a distracted manner, "Maybe… maybe."

Trina interrupted with a curt tone, "How about we stop standing around and find Tori and ask her what happened?"

Carter muttered loud enough for the others to hear, "Yes… find the lone Klingon…"

The red shirt security officer snapped her head around and glared at the private, resisting the urge to slap him.

Benson curtly spoke to prevent an argument from breaking out, "Let's move."

The landing party split to stand on either side of the door then Carter tapped the control to open the door. The doors parted, revealing a low light slightly curved T-intersection corridors. Anderson took point and led the marines into the corridor, revealing that it was a triple T-shaped corridor that lined up with the doors on both side of them, and each marine taking a direction to guard as the Star Fleeters followed them.

A little further down the corridor, there appeared to be check-in stations to process visitors to the station. It was safe to assume that there were checkpoints down the other two unseen corridors.

Isabe continued looking at her tricorder and reported, "Still no sign of life."

Benson glanced around, taking particular interest in the intersection corners and other bulkheads. "Uhhhnn…" he mumbled to himself.

Jade leaned over and whispered, "What?"

"There aren't any return fire scorch marks on the bulkhead outside or on any of these walls."

The doctor glanced around and noticed the same lack of marks on the doors. "So…"

"Either the boarders had their weapons on stun—"

Carter looked over his shoulder and interrupted, "Klingon disruptors don't have a stun setting."

Benson spared him a glance, not appreciating the interruption as he hadn't earned that right, then continued, "—or the only thing they hit were members of the survey team and what are the chances of that in such a defensible position?"

Jade saw his point and muttered, "Okay, this is getting weirder and weirder…"

"Let's start finding out some answers. Powers keep going to the ops station, but keep an eye out for the radiation levels. They're not anywhere close to dangerous, but… they're higher than what we'd accept on a ship." He nodded his head to the left and finished, "We'll track down the life form signature."

"Gotcha," Rex snapped off then started leading two marines down the center corridor.

Carter offered before Benson could take the lead, "I'll take point sir."

Benson nodded his head and the private took the left and started down the curved corridor. They followed and Trina started scanning with her tricorder, specifically for lifeforms and weapons signatures. Jade had her medical tricorder scanning for lifeforms as well, trying to pick up the signature they knew must come in range within the next few minutes.

* * *

The corridor was lit enough to see with the lights directly above the Fleeters' and lone marine's heads running down the corridor, but there was an eerie quality to it with so many shadows cast on the walls. The lights running along side the walls were only partially functioning and those that were, randomly flickered along with some of the over headlights. The situation wasn't helped with the slight creaking of the station as metal grind and pulled away from each other with the various forces it was experiencing in battling to remain in orbit of the growing gas giant. The air was becoming more pungent with the smell of death to those that had been in situations surrounding by it. Their surroundings pricked at their flight or fight instincts, but as professionals, they recognized the sensation and didn't let them affect them.

They finally stopped about four dozen meters from the entrance of the shuttle bay to one of the entrances into the cylinder tubes. They took up position on either side of the door again and Carter was about to tap the control, but Jade called out, "Wait."

"What?"

"I'm reading biomass about a dozen meters from the door. A lot of biomass," she whispered out, studying the sensing instrument in her hand.

Trina questioned with a knotted brow, "As in…"

"Something that used to be alive," the doctor answered in an ominous tone.

Carter looked a bit nervous and the color from Trina's face started to drain, her mind going to the worst possible conclusion.

Benson quickly gave a reasonable explanation to clamp down on any fear, "It could be spoiled food or any number of biological samples. This was an abandoned station for more than two hundred years. It's probably what we've all been smelling." He nodded his head anyway to the corporal to open the door.

"Or it could be someone from the survey team sir," Carter pointed out with a slight fearful expression.

Jade answered with another glance of her tricorder, "There's too much mass for people and too spread out. It has to be spoiled food…" She took a whiff and commented, "Freddie's right, you can smell a bit of it. I guess they couldn't process it out through the air filtration system while they were here."

"Corporal," Benson motioned to the control panel.

Carter tapped the control the door slid open, revealing another corridor with a line of doors on either side. They were immediately hit with the foul odor of rotten food hit their nostrils in full force, causing them to turn. It wasn't as bad as they expected. No one had to heave, dry or otherwise, but it certainly wasn't something one would want to smell on a regular basis.

Once they recovered enough, they looked down the corridor again saw that most of the doors lining the hallway were closed but a few of them were open. They could also spot T-intersection corridors evenly spaced every ten meters or so. However, what drew their attention was something lying in the middle of the corridor about a dozen meters in front of them, half covered in shadows from the barely functioning lights.

They could make out a body wearing blue science/medical division uniform, but couldn't tell if it was male or female, sending a chill down Trina's spine. She rushed past the captain and Corporal Carter, gripping her phaser tightly in her hand.

"Trina!" Jade shouted behind her, but the security officer refused to listen.

Captain Benson and Carter rushed behind her, covering each other and checking to see if anyone or anything could jump out of the rooms. Jade was on their heels, knowing to stay behind them and let them do their job of engaging any potential threats.

Trina stopped at the body, kneeling down to its side and rolling it over. She gasped in a sigh of relief despite how heartless the act would appear as she revealed that the fallen Star Fleet officer was a man in his mid-thirties with light almost blondish red hair that had a deep fourth degree burn in the center of his chest.

Carter pressed his shoulder against the bulkhead to the left, covering them from further down the corridor. Benson looked down the other end so no one would sneak up behind them. Jade knelt down on the other side of the fallen crewman to Trina and ran her hand scanner over the body.

Jade summarized the readings from the tricorder, "He's been dead for several days. It was a high energy discharge that killed him. It cooked most of his lungs and heart."

Benson didn't take his eyes off the way the came and asked, "Was it a disruptor?"

She shook her head and answered, "No, it was… these are typical signs of a phaser."

Benson knelt down next to Jade to the body and noticed the phaser still gripped in his right hand. He carefully pulled it out of his clenched fist and looked at the setting. He blew out a sigh and saw that it was set for one of the disintegration settings. He carefully turned the phaser down to the lowest setting and turned on the safety. He looked to Trina and asked in a tired breath, "Vega, scan for residual nadion particles… see if there is any traces of anyone disintegrated."

For a moment, fear gripped Trina's heart that Tori could just be free floating protons and electrons in the air, but she quickly remembered that her sister was most likely alive with the female Klingon life sign they detected from the ship. She picked up her tricorder and started scanning their surroundings.

As she was scanning, Benson reached around and slightly turned his body back over and reached behind to search for the crewman's communicator. He found it stuck on the adhesive belt that most personnel used on landing parties. He flipped over the communicator and the expected beeping sounded. He adjusted the setting and called out, "Benson to Tori. We found one of the survey team. Lock on to this signal and prepare to beam a body back."

An unknown voice came over the communicator, _"Who is this?"_

Benson knotted his brow at someone cutting into his transmission, but didn't get to respond as Trina reached over and grabbed his hand to yank the communicator to her.

She hastily spoke through the communicator, "Tori? It's Trina. Are you alright? Where are you?"

" _Trina?"_ the voice softly called out.

The captain gave the lieutenant a pointed expression that he didn't appreciate her grabbing him, but didn't say anything as she continued, "Yeah, it's me. We're here to pick you up. What happened? Where is everyone?"

There was a pause at the other end for several seconds then the unknown voice curtly answered, _"How do I know it's you? That you're not just some Klingon trick? You're just trying to pinpoint my position?"_

Trina momentarily frowned, unable to immediately respond with a reasonable counterpoint.

Benson saw his opportunity and interrupted, "This is Captain Benson of the USS Tori. We're here to pick you up commander, but you're the only life-sign. There isn't any need for subterfuge from us. There are no life readings for the rest of the survey team or any boarders. You and my landing party are the only life signs on the station. The ship has already pinpointed your position and the only reason why we didn't beam you directly aboard was due to all the ionization. We're just moving towards your general direction. Our tricorders will just pick you up in the next few minutes."

There was another pause, creating an eerie silence in the corridor.

Jade reached out to tug on Benson's upper sleeve and whispered, "Already have. She's moving into one of the centers of biomass. I'm starting to lose her signal."

The security officer interrupted again and begged, "Tori, we're here to get you out of here. The station's orbit is decaying and we need to get you and the others out of here. Are you okay?"

" _If you're really Trina from the Tori… tell me the story of how we went to high school together?"_

Trina frowned for a moment then her expression turned into one of embarrassment.

" _Well?"_

The security officer sighed then answered, "I had this big performance and to get ready, I tried some herbal tea, but it made my tongue swell and I couldn't sing. You had to sing the performance and were offered a slot at the school as soon as you finished singing."

After Trina finished recalling the story, she glanced up to see the others reactions. Jade was trying her best not to burst into laughter at how ridiculous her story sounded.

There was an audible sigh of relief and quickly answered, _"Trina, oh thank God. Be careful. There are Klingons on the station. We tried to fight them off, but there were too many of them. They're sporadic on my tricorder. They have to be masking their life signs somehow. They may be monitoring this transmission right now."_

"Hunker down and we'll come and get you. They'll get a nasty surprise by our marines."

" _This Shapiro cutting in sir. We're still not picking up any other lifesigns and you have about an hour before the station starts really dipping into the atmosphere and the gravity bubble won't protect it."_

"Understood. Lock on to this signal and standby to beam the body back. If you don't hear for us in half an hour, send a detachment of marines to come and get us. Make sure they bring pattern enhancers in case we have to beam out."

" _Yes sir."_

"One last order: go to Yellow Alert and keep an eye out for any vessels. If they're looking for a fight, defend yourselves."

He didn't wait for a reply, trusting Robbie to carry it out. He turned a control on the communicator and instructed, "Commander Vega, listen to your sister and sit tight and to any Klingons listening in on this transmission, this is your one chance to surrender and come with us before this station plunges into the planet. There is no Klingon vessel coming to rescue you."

He pressed another button on the communicator then placed it on the body of crewman. A moment later the body disappeared in a shimmering gold swirl.

He stood up and ordered, "Come on. Let's go get her."

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this update. I hope they can find Tori safely and there isn't something lurking in the dark. Side technical notes, I did borrow a little from J.J. Abram's 'Star Trek' with some of the equipment and dress, particularly the field jackets and utility belts Kirk and Chekhov wore in _Star Trek: Beyond_ , but here they're black instead of various shades of blue. Federation Marines are from the 'Star Fleet Universe'. Oh, yes, I realized I didn't mention this in chapter one, but Trina is the lone red shirt on this mission in a TOS story… Take care, OneHorseShay


	3. Chapter 3

Hello readers, I have another chapter for you. I hope to wrap this up within the next week as it's not a particularly long story.

Fanfic-Reader-88: Yep, things are starting to get back to normal but still have a bit of work ahead of us.

They fortunately know she's really alive, but how mentally stable she is at the moment is up for debate. They certainly have stumbled into something dangerous and certainly into the unknown, but Q said in Q-Who: 'If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.'

Rating: T

* * *

Chapter 3

Rex and the marines followed the straight line path from the shuttle bay, passing several rings of corridors that were presumably crew quarters, until they reached one of the doors to the operation center of the station. It was a square frame, but with slanted interlocking sections with the seam running diagonally from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. They apparently were in range of door and opened for them, making a considerably clunking noise. The marines tightened their respective grips on their phasers.

Anderson cautiously stepped inside, keeping his phaser shouldered and taking a sweeping look to take bead on anything that could appear. Isabe moved left and Rex moved right, sweeping the rest of the command center with their sidearms.

The room was well lit and clearly brought up to working order with various consoles displaying and a soft hum of equipment and various beeps. The ops center was arranged in a circular fashion with control stations lining the walls not too dissimilar to Star Fleet bridge designs other than there were five other cutaways sixty degrees to each other for access corridors and turbolifts and/or other rooms. In the center of the circular room was a control island standing at about one meter high with several stools around it.

The color scheme for the command center ranged from sterile white for trimmings of the exits and floors to eerie grey for the stations, chairs (made for humanoids) and rest of the room with the consoles giving off an eerie green glow. Above the stations and the access doors was a circle of seamlessly connected monitors to give a panoramic view station's surroundings. On one side showed the gas giant and if they turned their heads, they would see the Tori trailing behind the station.

The survey team had set up in various places in the circular command center with a few 'laptop' versions of PADDs sitting at some of the stations and connected to them with various cables. There was a stray tricorder and communicator lying about and a cot set up with a footlocker at the end of it by one group of stations that weren't operating.

Anderson idly commented, "Looks like nobody is home."

Isabe read off her tricorder, "I'm picking up radiation several decks below us. It's what the captain warned us about."

The lead marine commented, "The power plant is probably under us. The shielding is doubtlessly wearing thin after all this time. Is there any danger?"

"No, the in-between decks are shielding us fine, but I wouldn't want to go down there for any particular amount of time without a radiation suit."

Rex took a seat at one of stations and in front of the PADDs and started typing on the 'keyboard'. He idly commented, "Assuming they interfaced their computers with the station's controls…" He grinned and remarked, "Yes they did." He continued typing, brining up a number of displays on the PADD and on the station's built in monitors. "I can see why there's a radiation spike… most of the power is going to the gravity bubble trying to keep the station in orbit—or keeping it a floating enough to not already have sunk in it. They had a stable orbit when they got here, so… they were drawing just enough power for life support, so it wasn't a problem."

Isabe stood behind him, resting her left hand on his shoulder after letting her tricorder hang freely from the strap over her shoulder, and asked, "Can you stabilize the orbit and buy us some more time to find the others?"

The helm officer blatantly grinned from her putting her hand on his shoulder, but focused on answering her question, "I'm not sure and even if I could, the power requirement might start flooding the rest of the center with radiation."

"Do you have access to internal sensors?"

Rex typed away for a few more seconds then answered, "Yes… and according them… it's just us plus one."

"So, they're either dead or they left."

"Their shuttle is still here and there are the signs of a firefight in the bay."

"Is there a record of when the shuttle bay was opened or any transporter signal? Pinpoint when this happened?"

Rex pulled his hands away from the keyboard, laced his fingers then stuck his palms out to needlessly stretch his arms then started typing again.

Isabe raised a curious eyebrow to Anderson and asked, "Would even Klingons risk beaming through this mess?"

The helm officer idly commented as he went through the logs of system activities, glancing between the PADD's monitor and two of the station's monitors, "The Captain would have to get one of us back, so I wouldn't doubt them doing it for this station."

The marines had to acknowledge Rex's point that the captain wouldn't leave any of his crew behind on this station.

After a few more moments, Rex reported, "Okay… this is getting whacked… the only record they have of the bay opening is our arrival and there is no record of any energy spikes of transporters."

The marine leader shook his head and incongruously remarked, "They clearly got into a fight with someone in the bay."

Rex looked over his shoulder and pointed out, "No, all we saw was that they shot up their shuttle."

Anderson rubbed his chin and asked, "Could they have erased their arrival?"

The Star Fleeter shrugged his shoulder and answered, "They could, but it would just be if they had the time. They capture the team, realize that we were on our way, so they scrub their tracks so we can't accuse them of anything… makes sense on their part. Why leave all the equipment? It would have everything they needed to analyze later short of actually having the station."

Anderson shook his head and mumbled, "I don't like mysteries…"

Isabe suggested, "Check the team's logs. Maybe the answer is in there."

"Right." He started typing again, searching for the commander's logs. After a few moments, he found them and started playing the visual log on the large monitor above the station.

A young man in a red operations shirt appeared on the screen and began, _"Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.349, Commander Marshall reporting for the Bureau of Propulsion: The USS Vega has arrived at what we're calling 'Grey Station' after all the urban legends of twentieth and twenty-first century Earth about the 'Old Kings' to drop off me and my survey team to begin studying the recently discovered derelict space station. After the last day of helping us get the station up and running enough for the next two weeks until the Tori picks us up, the Vega has departed to continue her patrol along the Klingon Neutral Zone._

 _Our computer and science expert Lieutenant Commander Victoria Vega has figured out enough of the station's systems to turn on the main computer and effectively operate the life support systems, sensors and what we believe are the shields. We're still trying to figure how the station keeping system works for safety concerns even if the station is maintaining a stable orbit._

 _I'm quite confident that we'll be able to glean a great deal of information over the next two weeks about the station and justify staying longer and getting a larger team to fully analysis the station before the Tori arrives to pick us up._

 _Now, if we could only figure out how to jettison all the rotten food in the cargo attachments that are stinking up the station and get rid of the smell."_

Rex tapped the next log entry and the young commander appeared on the screen wearing a pleasant expression.

" _Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.352: This station is a gold mine of information and technology from a historical perspective. The Federation may have caught up with a lot of the systems that the 'Old Kings' used, but some are more efficient than ours. We've figured out how their food replicators work. They're preprogrammed with a number of dishes that turn out to be Klingon and their subject species dishes along with a number we don't recognize. We also found something interesting; we found a device that is something similar to a Klingon mindsifter built into what we think is a security station in a side room of the ops center—stations we believe are on Klingon vessels to keep their subordinates in check, giving credence that this is an 'Old King' station in case we had any doubts."_

Anderson shook his head and muttered, "Everything is going fine for them so far."

The helmsman snorted out, "Yeah, but he just confirmed that this is an 'Old King' station and the Klingons would want this station if they found out about it."

Isabe motioned with a hand and asked, "Play the next log."

Rex smiled up at her and answered, "Anything for you…" He tapped a button and the next log started playing.

" _Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.354: Well, that confirms it. This is an 'Old King' station. Commander Vega has been able to access a number of records, including visuals on the 'Old Kings' and the conspiracy buffs are right. They look just like all those representations of the 'Greys' from centuries ago. I just hope Star Fleet will clear us in writing a book about our findings. We'd make a killing with the conspiracy theorists back home and the colonies. Who am I kidding, Star Fleet Intelligence and the G.I.A. would probably classify this whole mission."_

" _Commander's Log, Stardate 2267.356: Another layer of the dying star's atmosphere has reached us and the planet and we've weathered it pretty good. The combination of the gas giant's magnetic field and the station's shields directed much of the brunt of the gases around us. There was a slight shift in our orbit, but we've figured out enough to operate the station keeping system to stabilize our orbit. It's a highly advance gravimetric drive system that's more efficient than what we use. I know the ship building businesses are going to be fighting over this technology._

 _Other than a bumpy ride and some electrical blowouts that we were able to restart without a problem, we should be fine until the Tori arrives to relieve us._

 _In the meantime, Commander Vega is working like a madwoman doing double duty trying to catalogue the computer system while monitoring the stellar phenomena for later analysis. I'm glad to have her as the team's science officer."_

Rex relaxed back in his seat and remarked, "So the collapse was six days ago and no Klingons…"

He straightened up and played the next log entry.

The commander looked a little worried on the screen as he recorded his next log. _"Commander's log, Stardate 2267.357: We may have a few problems. We found that the extra power we're using to stabilize our orbit is causing a slight radiation leak. The system is just so old, some of the shielding is starting to fail. If we stay out of the engineering section, we should be fine until the Tori arrives, but if there becomes a problem down there… my lead engineer might have to go down there._

 _Our other potential problem is that the sensors are starting to pick up erratic signals that look like a ship in the system, but the Tori isn't due to arrive for another five days. It could just be a passing commercial vessel on its way to any number of destinations, probably the Tafelland colony just several dozen light years away._

 _Commander's Log, supplemental: The sensor contacts are a ship and it appears to be a Klingon vessel roaming the system taking a survey from the scant silhouettes we keep getting. They could just be on a scientific survey for suitable planets for colonization or mining privileges that they'll use to start another argument with us and drag the Organians into it and just traveled too far from the Neutral Zone or… they could be scouting the area to launch raids into the Federation or worst… they know about the station and are looking for it—us._

 _I believe it is only a matter of time until they find us. The Tori is still five days out and I don't want to risk sending out a signal, one I'm not sure would even get through the interference of all the planetary body shifts and ionized gases."_

" _Commander's log, Stardate 2267.358: While we've been waiting to figure out whether we're tracking a Klingon ship or not and trying to keep the station in orbit, the rest of the team continues to inventory the rest of the station. It's kind of creepy being on such a large station with just the five of us, especially with the possibility of a Klingon ship out there looking for us, trying to baby the station in remaining in orbit and just the age of the station. We're having power fluctuations with lights and temperature differences throughout the station while we catalogue everything, especially abandoned crew quarters that still had a number of personal belongings. The team is claiming they're starting to hear things and not just the normal creeks of metal settling."_

The young commander cleared his throat and he looked a little apprehensive, his eyes shifting back and forth as he recorded his next log entry, _"Commander's log, Stardate 2267.359: The sensor ghost we've been tracking over the last two days finally cleared enough of the stellar gases enough to give us a clear silhouette of the ship and it's a Klingon E-Three Corvette. We don't have many options. We can't power down and get lost in the noise of the system without sinking into the atmosphere and we can't escape in the shuttle as they'd just chase us down."_

 _Commander's Log, supplemental: Commander Vega claims to have seen an 'Old King' in one of the station containers, asking why she was in league with us. She says it told her that it was her responsibility to 'deal with us' and protect the station because she's Klingon. There is nothing on the internal sensors that show that there is any other lifeform on the station, any record of a shuttle landing or airlock opening or transporter signal._

 _I just think she's getting a little jumpy and I don't blame her. She's been putting in twenty hour days doing double, triple duty, the advantage of Klingons only needing five hours of sleep, but I think even she's over doing it—frankly, I think all of us are overdoing it. We're not getting enough sleep with having at least two of us awake at all times to monitor the power plant and keep an eye out for that ship. Everyone is on edge with that Klingon ship out there and just the general creepiness of this place. Odd noises around the station are becoming more…"_

Something caught the commander's attention and they watched as the commander paused in his log entry, looking over to his right and visibly gripping a phaser pistol. He called out, _"April, is that you?"_

He waited for several seconds, scanning the rest of the ops center where it appeared he was the only one manning it. He took several more breaths then looked back at the screen. _"Such as that… we can't seem to track the sounds either through the diagnostics or tricorder readings. They're too random just to search the whole station while we continue to catalogue it and they're happening in places after we've secured them."_

The screen went blank as he cut off his log entry.

Anderson asked the others before Rex moved onto the next entry, "Did you hear anything?"

Isabe shook her head and answered, "No, could he have imagined it?"

"With how jumpy he seems, he might have been imagining it. This place is creepy and if you stayed long enough, I'm sure you'd start imagining hearing things."

" _Commander's Log, Stardate… stardate two, two, six… seven… point… three six… zero: Those Klingons… those Klingon bastards found us and boarded the station. We tried to fight them off, but there were too many of them. We lost April then the rest of us made it back to the ops center except Vega…" He took several deep breaths and there was a wild look in his eyes. He licked his lips and continued, "I know that Klingon bitch is out there somewhere… somewhere… I know she's in league with them. She gave away our position to them. I should have never trusted her. I don't know why some mad fool would ever trust a Klingon in the service."_

four two… zero two… point… four:

He took several more heavy breaths then continued, _"Fernandez went after Commander Vega in one of the cargo cylinders and Russell is down in the powerplant, trying to make sure it stays online for us to hang on until the Tori gets here… and if not… to blast it and take as many of those Klingon bastards as we can to plunge into the planet."_

Isabe idly commented, "It sounds like he was losing it. He must not have seen much combat."

" _Commander's Log, Stardate… stardate two… two, six seven… point… three six… two: The Klingons have gotten through the sealed decks and… I've lost contact with Fernandez and Russell has sealed himself in the engineering section. I assume they're both dead either by the Klingons and the radiation poison. So… I'm the only one left… I won't be a Klingon prisoner… we should have fought them when we had the chance… to Hell with them and to the Organians…"_

He held his phaser pistol and turned the back knob to the highest setting. He placed the crystal tip under his chin then pulled the trigger. In a moment, he let out a horrifying yell as he was consumed and dissolved in a glowing yellow light until nothing remained.

Rex tapped the button to end the playback while the others glanced away, trying to hide their horrified reactions of watching someone not only disintegrated, but doing it to one's self. The helm officer cleared his throat, unable even to make a witty and usually bad taste remark, then spoke, "So… Vega is somewhere in the station, the commander is dead and let's assume the engineer is in the engineering section dead of radiation poising, so… that's three down. So, where are the other two?"

Anderson took a seat in the neighboring station to Rex and started bringing up the sensor logs. "Either they're dead or the Klingons got them as hostages." He tapped back to the sensor logs to the stardates mentioned in the Commander's logs and started scrolling through them to find the Klingon ship. After several seconds, he called out, "Found the Klingon silhouette they were talking about."

Isabe stood between the seated men while Rex slightly swiveled in his seat to look at the station monitor, showing a sensor display of what the survey teamed said was the Klingon ship.

The Cygnan marine squinted as she looked at the display and muttered, "What silhouette? All I see are scrambled pixels."

Rex shook his head and commented, "I don't see anything at all. I see a blank screen."

The marine knotted his brow and pointed to the screen. "It's right there. Clear as day, a Klingon Bird-of-Prey."

Isabe and Rex looked to one another for second then the helmsman commented, "Okay, hold up a sec. You see a Klingon ship; tall, blue and gorgeous here sees scrambled pixels and I'm not seeing anything?"

The Cygnan squinted her black eyes, unsure if the lieutenant was what humans would call 'flirting' with her. She refrained from commenting, unsure if she should tell him to stop or that she was flattered. She wasn't particularly attracted to people outside her own species, except for perhaps Andorians, but she did find his humorous demeanor intriguing.

"So… which one of us is having the eye problems."

"There's nothing mechanically wrong with me and since Isabe isn't seeing it either…"

The marine team leader frowned, not liking the idea that he was the one seeing things.

"Go through the rest of the sensor logs just for the contact and find the logs with the Klingon lifeforms," Rex told him while he reached behind him for his belt and pulled out his communicator. He flipped open the gold antenna grill, waiting for the beeping to finish to signal that he had an open channel, "Rex to Captain Benson."

He waited a few seconds before he was answered, _"Benson here."_

"We've secured the ops center and went through the Commander's logs."

" _So do you know what happened?"_

"Yes and found a few freaky things."

There was a pause on the other end then Benson questioned, _"Freaky? I think Doctor West is ready to call this whole place 'freaky'… if things weren't so serious, I think she'd love it."_

" _Hey!"_ Jade's voice could be heard in the background.

Rex ignored it and answered, "The commander said they were boarded by Klingons, but couldn't hold them off. They lost a member named April to the Klingons and he thought Commander Vega betrayed them. He sent another member, Fernandez, to go get her after she went missing in one of the cargo containers while he and the engineer held up in ops. After he lost contact with the one he sent after Vega and we think the engineer is dead in the powerplant as he's been in there for the last few days… he took his own life before becoming a Klingon prisoner."

They heard Benson audibly sighed, not wanting to hear such news. He continued in a professional tone, _"We found Fernadez with a phaser wound to the chest. He's been dead for several days, so… that just leaves April and Commander Vega. She broke into our communications with the ship and we're on her way to get her. She says there are Klingons still onboard, but they're hiding themselves from sensors. Any sign of them on the internal sensors?"_

"No, it's just us plus one."

" _So what was the 'freaky' part you found?"_

"Anderson found the sensor log of the Klingon ship they were tracking for a few days before they were boarded, but… we're looking at the silhouette record and we're each seeing something different. He's seeing a Bird-of-Prey, Isabe is seeing scrambled pixels and I'm not seeing anything at all."

There were a few moments of silence until Jade's voice spoke through the communicator, _"Rex, find their medical kit and pull out the medical tricorder."_

Rex didn't hesitate to get up from his seat and walked over to a Star Fleet supply crate in front of another set of turned off consuls. He knelt down and opened it, revealing a number of field rations, power cells, an extra phaser pistol, jugs of water and the med-kit. He retrieved the kit then pulled out the tricorder.

"Okay, got it."

" _I want you to do a scan of Anderson and Isabe then transmit the results to my tricorder."_

"Right."

He stood up and walked back to the marines. He sat the communicator down on the console next to the PADD then pulled out the hand scanner from the front compartment of the black box. He turned the display to himself and started running it over the pair, the swirling sound of the medical scanner cutting through the soft hum of the background noise.

Anderson ignored him while looking through the records of the sensor contacts.

After several seconds, he tapped a few controls on the tricorder then leaned over and spoke into the communicator, "Transmitting it to you now."

They waited a few moments to pass then the doctor to report, _"Interesting…"_

Rex asked, "What?"

" _They have elevated brain activity, particularly in their audio and visual centers."_

Benson spoke up, _"We're in a stressful situation and we're all on alert, of course we're going to have 'elevated brain activity'."_

Jade answered with a doubtful tone, _"No, this is showing they're actively processing more information as if they have their full attention on watching something than just being on alert, so…"_

" _So something is directly stimulating their brains?"_

" _It looks like it."_

The marines shared concerned gazes while Benson asked over the communicator, "Is it dangerous?"

" _At the levels Rex found, no, but it could be making them see things that he's not seeing. It could easily make them start hearing things that aren't there or replace things they hear with something else or nothing at all."_

"Any ideas what's causing it?"

" _Offhand? Some form of hallucinogen, but there's nothing I'm reading in the air."_ She asked in a joking manner, _"You haven't ingested anything have you?"_

Isabe answered, "No doctor, but are you saying we can't trust our senses?"

" _I'm saying they'll partially compromised, but you seem to have a partial immunity to what is going on as the parts of your brain that are being stimulated don't necessarily correspond one to one to the parts that process your senses. It may be due to Cygnan brains are slightly structured differently than human brains."_

"Is that why I'm seeing the pixels instead of the silhouette?"

" _It's the only guess I have."_

Anderson certainly didn't like the idea that he was potentially seeing things. He didn't feel any different other than the natural apprehension of being in an unfamiliar and dangerous place, one he was trained and experienced in handling.

Captain Benson spoke up, _"Okay, Lieutenant Powers, try to see if you can track down the source of what's causing the brain stimulation. Anderson, use the station's systems to try to find biological mass that could correspond to the last two missing survey members. I want confirmation of their remains. Isabe, pack up the rest of the survey team's equipment, especially all the records of their stay, so we can take the most important stuff in one trip. You have fifteen minutes to get all that done then get to the shuttle."_

Three series of 'aye sirs' sounded to acknowledge his orders.

" _We'll contact you as soon as we have Vega. Benson out."_

Rex looked to his companions and ordered, "You heard him, let's get to work."

He took a seat back at his console and started his scans, Anderson switched from looking through the logs and started the scans and Isabe started going to the other consoles to safely shutdown the other hooked up PADDs and disconnected them.

* * *

Author's Note: So they have some answers and not very pleasant ones for the survey crew and now what happened to them, looks like it's starting to happen to our brave Landing Party. We'll see how they handle it in the next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Hello dear readers, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving for my American readers and for the rest, I hope you have a great weekend. I thought I had actually posted this last week, so here it is.

Fanfic-Reader-88: They've heard at least her voice and with what have happened so far, everyone else is either dead or something worst happen to them. Maybe the Klingons are on the station and they can't find them, who knows?

You are the only one reviewing so far. The fusion idea probably doesn't appeal to most fans, but I enjoy writing them together.

Rating: T Violence

* * *

Chapter 4

After finishing their conversation with the rest of the landing party, Carter led the trio of Star Fleet officers down the corridor of the large cargo cylinder that was increasingly loosing illumination with a few more burnt out lights and flickering ones.

There was a primal sense of nervousness prickling at the back of their respective necks as Jade's remark about them being in a potential horror movie could be more accurate than first thought. The survey team save for one were dead, lighting was becoming intermediate at best, the station was starting to creak more and more with the various external pressures, the air was still permeated with the smell of death and their sensor readings were suspect about whether or not they were actually the only lifeforms on the station.

Carter glanced up at the ceiling as he carefully put one foot in front of another, believing he had heard something. He didn't see anything but the flickering lights. He shook his head and continued forward for a few more seconds then stopped, raising his left fist to signal that they should stop. He softly whispered over his shoulder, "Did you here that sir?"

Benson paused to see if he could hear anything, but the only thing he could hear was the background noise they had been hearing for the last few minutes "No, I didn't. What did you hear?"

"It sounded like… sounded like a buzzing?"

"Buzzing? Vega, life-sign reading again."

Trina was bringing up the rear and looked to her tricorder and answered, "I'm still not reading any others but ours and intermitted Tori's."

Jade was behind Benson and offered after another glance of her tricorder, "It could be a short in any number of electrical systems. This thing is hundreds of years old."

Carter nodded, though that didn't make him feel any better. He gripped under the barrel of his weapon again then continued leading the party, becoming almost hyperaware of his surroundings. After another few meters of slow progression, Trina motioned for them to stop in front of a corridor with a slightly larger door than the ones to the various rooms they had passed for what was assumed to be used for secure cargo.

The brunette security officer looked down at her tricorder as she explained, "This looks like one of the entrances to the main outer cargo holds."

Carter asked with a squiggly gaze, "We passed several ones just like this, why didn't we enter through those?"

"It's the closest one Tori's lifesign and we had a clear path this way instead of being possibly ambushed in a maze of cargo. The outer portions of these sections are designed like warehouses."

Benson and Carter took point, taking position on either side of the door while the ladies stood behind them about a meter. Trina covered the marine around his shoulder while Jade finally reached to pull out her palm phaser, making sure it was set for stun. Carter tapped a control and the doors parted. They were hit with another whiff of rotting food. They had to turn their heads and cover their noses and mouths.

Benson covered his nose with the inside of his left forearm sleeve and lowered his weapon. He let it hang freely from the combat sling and drew his phaser pistol while he continued to cover his face. He took the first step inside followed by the others, carefully eyeing their soundings as the entered the large cargo hold, reaching dozens of meters high and out with the curved wall of being inside a cylinder. There were numerous stacks of crates, some reaching several decks high to nearly the ceiling, refrigerator units that had gone out and various barrels stacked several times high, casting various and long shadows inside the hold from the barely functioning overhead lights. The combination of foul air and poor lighting with unseen corners and hidden shadows really did make it feel like a potential haunted house.

They were several strides into the hold when Trina called out, "Let me go in and get her. She's obviously on edge and if she sees anyone else, she might start shooting."

The starship captain dropped his arm away from his face and gave her a supportive smile as he answered, "Trina, I admire your concern, but you don't know if she's the only one in there. Sensors say we're the only ones here, but she's insistent that there are Klingons onboard."

"It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"But is it a risk I'm comfortable for you to take?"

The pair looked as if they were about to have a standoff, but Jade carefully took Benson by his right elbow and suggested, "Let her go Freddie. With how she sounded on the communicator, she wasn't too far away from having a panic attack… those aren't pretty when she has something like one."

The captain looked to the doctor, giving her a questioning expression, but she sweetly smiled in return that suggested that it would be kind of point to argue with her. Benson looked back to Trina and relented, "Okay, but if you have to stun her for your and her safety then don't hesitate to do it. We'll carry her back if we have to."

"Right."

Trina turned and headed deeper into the cargo hold, watching out for any shift in shadow and listening out for any unusual sound. She kept her phaser carbine at a semi-raised state, holding her tricorder with her other hand to the side of the barrel to be able to use it to raise her weapon in a moment's notice, while she carefully made her way through the maze of cargo containers.

After about a dozen meters, she hadn't spotted anyone and the tricorder wasn't much help with all the rotten food and the scent starting to make her eyes water. It was a risk, but she started calling out, "Tori! It's me Trina! I'm here to take you home! Tori!"

She paused every so often as she stopped by a stack of cargo, careful to peer around them in not being blindsided. She walked about another dozen meters before she heard a voice call out, "Trina?"

The security officer snapped her weapon up and looked up to see that Tori was lying on top of a stack of creates and holding a phaser pistol in her direction, wearing a near panicked expression.

The older sister lowered her weapon and breathed out a sigh of relief, "Tori?"

The science officer nodded her head and smiled, relieved beyond belief that she saw her sister.

* * *

The two Star Fleet officers and marine guarded the surrounding area as they waited for Trina to find her sister. If the situation wasn't so dire, Jade would have enjoyed the atmosphere of the creepiness. Benson was on guard, wondering how a glorified archeology mission could turn out so badly. If it was the Klingons responsible, he wouldn't let it slide and he wouldn't let the Organians make excuses for them to maintain the piece. He didn't exactly know he was going to hold a bunch of 'gods' feet to the fire, but he'd figure out a way. Carter was becoming more agitated, glancing around almost in a desperate fashion trying to find the source of what he believed he was hearing.

Carter snapped around to their left side and raised his weapon, desperately looking for the source of the buzzing. He harshly whispered out, "Do you hear that?"

Benson gripped his weapon a little tighter and raised it halfway up, preparing for a fight as he looked in the direction the private directing his sights. He returned with a hushed whisper, "No, I don't."

The blonde young man snapped in frustration, "How can you not hear it?"

"You just might have better hearing than me private," the captain curtly answered him, signaling that he shouldn't speak to him in that tone.

Jade had holstered her palm phaser into her belt, but now had subconsciously moved her hand back over the small handheld weapon. She wasn't so much apprehensive to what he could be hearing, but the increasing anxiety he was displaying.

"Jade, do hear anything?"

She shook her head and uttered, "I wish I did. This place certainly is creepy enough to put us on edge and make us think any little noise or shadow could be something ready to jump out at us." She glanced up at the ceiling where one of the many overhead lights was fading and brightening in an erratic pattern. "It would make for a fantastic haunted house…"

Carter swallowed, feeling his voice suddenly dry, as his eyes continued to dart around to spot the incessant noise. He called out over his shoulder to Jade and asked, "Do you think it's haunted? Maybe the crew is haunting the place after their deaths?"

Jade turned her head to look at the back of his head, slightly squinting as she didn't think she heard him correctly. She didn't think they would take what she was saying literally. "What?"

The private looked over his shoulder and asked, "It's an old station and we really don't know why the Old Kings left. Maybe all of them couldn't get away and they were trapped here. They eventually died and their spirits couldn't leave. What if that's causing Anderson and Isabe to see things that aren't there? It could explain why there isn't any distruptor fire anywhere. They made them hallucinate it?"

The doctor was about to point out how absurd it would be for a ghost or even a number of ghosts to do such a thing, but Benson humored the young marine with a smile and answered, "It's more likely that they simply abandoned the station like the rest of their people and moved on with them, but about any ghosts… I've always been on the fence about the existence of ghosts, but… we know that non-corporeal entities do exist. The Organians and Medusans being the most obvious examples that I can think of off the top of my head…"

"And you think something like that could be 'haunting' this place sir?"

Benson continued glancing around, trying to spot what Carter believed he was hearing. "I don't know, but it certainly shouldn't be ruled out as a possibility until I get a statement from Commander Vega and look through _all_ the logs of the survey team."

Carter nodded his head and turned his attention back to keeping an eye on their surroundings.

Jade took a step next to Benson and whispered, "You shouldn't encourage him like that."

The captain raised an eyebrow and answered, "What? I can't rule that out. There are things we'd call disembodied spirits in the galaxy. The Organians jump out as the biggest example. At the beginning of the year, the Enterprise ran into one that was obsessed with the Napoleonic Era and was basically a child treating them like playthings. Something like him might have set up this situation to be a modern horror house. People come in to stay for a while and never come out? We could just be some playthings for some malevolent being."

The doctor raised her formerly pierced eyebrow and replied, "Okay… now you getting me scared."

"Jade West scared? That'll be the day," he returned with a soft tease and smile.

The blue dress doctor crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head, fighting a smile.

As the pair was talking, Carter started seeing shadows shift at the highest stakes of cargo to the left of the entrance. His breathing and heart rate steadily increased as the buzzing got louder in his ear. He suddenly jerked his head to the side as he looked like he had seen something in the higher stacked cargo. His eyes went wide as he apparently got a good look at the thing that had set him on edge.

"Oh my God! A Wasp!"

He raised his carbine and squeezed off a quick burst of fire at the top of stake of cargo. Several short blue beams left the barrel and struck a plastic cargo container, blasting several nice clean holes through a corner of the container.

"Damn!" he swore at missing what he was shooting. He lowered his weapon and started running down the hold to give chase.

Benson took a step to try to catch him, but missed his arm. "Private!"

* * *

Tori finished climbing down the stack of crates with Trina's hands up to catch her if she slipped.

The younger Vega sister turned and wrapped her arms around Trina, blowing out a relieved breath and slumped in her embrace.

Trina brushed her hand up and down her back. "You're okay, you're okay." She pulled back several seconds later then reached for her utility belt to pull out a cylinder canteen of water. She unscrewed the top of it then handed it to Tori.

The science offer cradled the silver cylinder and gulped a few swallows. She pulled it away from her lips and took a few more deep breaths.

The older Vega sister pulled off her field jacket then wrapped it over Tori's shoulders, brushing her hands up and down her younger sister's arms.

Tori smiled her thanks then Trina asked, "What happened?"

Tori brushed her mouth off the back of her left hand then took another breath. "We were boarded by Klingons. I tried to warn the Commander they were coming because a real life 'Old King' somehow got on the station. He told me the Klingons were coming and that I had to help them, but the Commander didn't believe me. There was no one else on the station."

She took another swig from the canteen then continued, "They showed up and we couldn't hold them off. We had to retreat to the command center, hoping we could hold out until you got here, but… the Commander… Commander, he started thinking I was… a Klingon spy. He wanted to know how I gave them away… how I… helped them and how many were there. He tried to…" She took several deep breaths. "I was able to grab a phaser and I ran. Fernandez came after me and…"

Trina took her by the upper arms and firmly stated, "It was either you or him. He had his phaser set for disintegrate. He wasn't trying to take you alive."

The science officer swallowed and took a deep breath. She licked her lips then uttered, "But… I had my phaser on stun. I promise to the Holy Mother that I had it on stun, but…" She looked back to the phaser she had stuck in her belt.

Trina carefully pulled it out and checked the setting, seeing the back knob was set to kill level heat setting.

The lovely but clearly agitated young woman asked, "Is it on stun?"

The older sister partially smiled and answered, "No, but it's not your fault. We've figured out something is stimulating our brains, making us see things… such as the record of the Klingon ship you were tracking."

Tori knotted her brow then took a step back. She breathlessly uttered, "What? There wasn't a Klingon ship? I could be… I might just be imagining you?"

Trina pulled her into a quick hug and held her tight, not letting her go and whispered into her ear, "I'm right here. I'm real. This is real. This is real."

She slumped into her older sister's arms, returning the hug, trusting that she could feel her sister, that she could feel her warmth and heartbeat.

The older sister pulled back again and brushed her hands up and down Tori's upper arms and assured her, "Okay, okay. You're safe and we're getting out of here. We found three others, but do you know where the last member of your team? We can't pick her up on sensors."

The younger brunette took a deep breath and answered, "So they're alright?"

Trina sighed then reluctantly answered, "No. The commander's dead and we believe so is the engineer in the engineering section."

Tori's shoulders dropped along with her chin. She shook her head, looking totally defeated and thoroughly exhausted.

The older brunette rested her hand on Tori's left shoulder and began, "We'll get you back to the ship then we'll figu—"

The whining sound of phaser fire several dozen meters down the cargo hold interrupted her, causing Trina to spin around and Tori to grip her older sister's arms.

Trina gripped her carbine then turned and grabbed Tori's right wrist with her free hand then set off in the direction of the fire.

Ops Center

'Old Kings' Station

Sector 2007

Isabe had finished packing up the other PADDs and stacked them on the footlocker at the end of the bunk. She had noticed that the name printed on it was 'VEGA, LT. COMMANDER'. She called out over her shoulder as the other two were busy on their task, "Hey, it looks like lieutenant's sister was sleeping here while she worked. This is her footlocker."

Anderson looked over his shoulder and remarked, "The commander did say that she was working herself nearly nonstop to understand this system, so she slept here to save time. I guess we can be curious enough to take it with us to use to carry the equipment."

The corporal walked back to the pair, resting a hand on the top of each chair's backrest and asked, "So, how are you doing?"

The fellow marine sighed, "I've confirmed the engineer is by the power core and… he's dead, but I'm still having trouble finding the last survey member."

Rex continued to type on the PADD, quite busy on his task and momentarily ignoring her.

Isabe patted the officer's shoulder and quietly asked, "What about you lieutenant?"

The helm officer finally acknowledged, "I'm still trying to track down the source of the mind altering signal. I figured out that it is a weak signal being pumped through the station's internal communication system. The problem so far is the controls to operate the system didn't appear to be within the computer system I'm operating."

The Cygnan marine asked, "Why don't you just shut that down? We're not using it."

He shook his head and answered, "It's being pumped through it, not actually a function of the communication system. I'd have to actually burn out the system for it to stop."

Anderson suggested, "Why don't we try that then? I don't want to start imagining something and accidentally shoot one of you… or shoot myself."

"I don't think the brass would like us to damage the station anymore than we have to and besides, we shouldn't play around with that janked up power core or we might all start glowing. I just have… wait a second… there's a separate computer system." He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I feel as dumb as Robbie. The security station."

"What?"

Rex looked over his shoulder and up to Isabe to answer, "The security station they mentioned in the log. It's a separate unit from the main computer to override the system if necessary. This could be some self-defense program to protect the station and…" His eyes went wide as another thought hit him. "…the Klingon mindsifter. It's basically a mind reader for interrogation that sends signals into the brain and gets a feedback reading. Instead of using it to stimulate the brain for memories, it's stimulating it to make you see things that aren't actually there."

Anderson knotted his brow and asked, "Is that possible?"

"Your brain is being stimulated and there's a device here that stimulates people's brains…" He squinted and finished in a sarcastic manner, "…is it that big a leap?"

The senior marine tightened his smile and answered, "I see your point."

Isabe stated the obvious, "We have to get into that room."

Rex got up from his seat and Isabe joined him to check out the attached rooms as they didn't know which one was the room they spoke of in the log. Rex went left while Isabe went right to check two of the rooms.

The door opened for Rex and he took a quick glance around, seeing that the room was just a lavatory with several stalls.

Isabe approached her chosen room, but before she was close enough to activate the door, she knotted her brow and started glancing around in place.

Anderson noticed her sudden change in demeanor and turned a curious look to his fellow marine. "Isabe, what is it?"

She turned to the access door at the opposite end of the ops center from which they entered, "I thought I heard… scratching."

"Scratching?"

Rex turned away from the door and offered, "I didn't hear anything and I have a greater range and sensitive to hearing than either one of you. You're just being a little nervous because of the creepy surroundings." He shook his head and chuckled, "I bet Jade is getting a thrill out of it."

The marines gave him a shared perplexed expression.

He lazily shrugged a shoulder and answered, "She's into horror movies."

Anderson nodded in acknowledgement.

Rex continued with a grin towards the Cygnan corporal and asked with a smooth, flirtatious manner, "You can always slide up next to me. I'll make sure nothing happens to you."

Isabe looked to Anderson and asked, "Is he what humans refer to as 'flirting' to me?"

The Lance Corporal snorted a laugh and answered, "I think he is flirting with you."

The Cygnan's cheek blushed a darker hue of blue.

The gold shirt Star Fleet officer smiled and replied in a teasing voice, "Take it any way you want corporal…"

"It's against regulations for officers and enlisted personnel to fraternized… even on a five-year mission."

Anderson leaned over and whispered with a grin, "I don't think he's concerned about that."

She was about to respond, but she turned her head with a snap. She walked away and closer towards the door. "I know I hear something out there."

Anderson offered with a soft laugh, "There's nothing out there to do that."

Rex followed up with a snort and grin, "It's not like Cat beamed over and found herself a scratching post."

Isabe's right hand rested on the butt of her phaser pistol that was holstered while she picked up her tricorder and took a glance down at it. The display showed that they were the only three in the immediate vicinity. She took another breath and approached the other entrance into the ops center. It registered her presence and opened, revealing an identical corridor to the one they entered except the more of the overhead lights were flickering or nonfunctional, leaving far more shadows. She squinted as she tried to pick up any movement down the dark corridor. She had the best chance of seeing something with the advantage of lowlight vision.

She looked for several seconds until she saw a shadow move at the end of the hallway. She pulled her phaser pistol and glanced over her shoulder with the corner of her right eye and shouted, "I saw something."

Rex approached from behind and asked, "What did you see?"

Isabe took another step out of the door and answered, a perplex expression across her face, "I'm not sure."

"What does your tricorder say?"

"There's… wait, I got a lifeform reading…" Her eyes went wide and uttered, "…by the Sky Fathers…"

The helmsman's concern suddenly spiked and asked, "What?"

Isabe dropped the tricorder for it to loosely hang by her hip and she pulled her phaser from the holster. She called out before suddenly dashing down the hallway, "Stay here!"

"Isabe!" Rex shouted after her.

She ignored him as she was several meters down the corridor and turning to her right. She paused before she finished rounding the corner. She shouted out as she raised her phaser pistol, "Kzinti!"

Rex watched the Cygnan fire off her phaser down the corridor. He could hear and thus easily imagining the phaser beam striking some piece of bulkhead and sending out sparks from explosively melted metal.

She started running again to chase down her phantom intruder.

The helm officer snapped his head and order, "Find out what she's chasing!" He didn't wait for an acknowledgement as he started running after her.

* * *

Author's Note: They found Tori, but it looks like everything is spinning out of control for them with two of them terrified of something that are in their souls. Thanks for reading, OneHorseShay.


	5. Chapter 5

Hello dear readers, I have another installment of this little side project of mine that I hope you'll enjoy.

Fanfic-Reader-88: Well, Tori and Trina are chasing the sound of Carter wildly firing his phaser and Rex is chasing Isabe because she is 'seeing' something.

Twilight Warrior 627: It's basically Star Trek with some borrowed pieces from the oldest AU of the Original Series still in production. Hope you enjoy the continuation.

Rating: T

* * *

Chapter 5

In the cargo hold, Benson and Jade were chasing the marine private halfway down the cargo hold as he was randomly firing his phaser at the tops of cargo stacks and the ceiling. Benson shouted as they maneuvered through the various cargos, "Carter! Carter, stop!"

After another dozen meters of firing and running, Carter came to an abrupt stop. He gripped his phaser carbine tightly to his shoulder, glancing up at the ceiling with a near panicked look in his eyes.

Benson and Jade stopped several feet behind him. He extended his left arm out to shield and keep her back, a professional and personal instinctive reaction.

Jade shouted at him, "What are you shooting at?!"

The private glanced over his left shoulder to the Star Fleeters and shouted, "I saw a Wasp. It was flying around, hiding in the cargo."

Benson recognized the sheer panic and near terror in the young marine's eyes, seeing he was ready to snap at any moment at what he saw. He calmly answered as he flicked the carbine to a higher setting with his thumb, knowing that the marine's armor would protect him from a stun setting, "There are no Wasps outside of their system. They're quarantined—nothing in or out—and can't get past the police and Star Fleet patrols. You couldn't have seen one."

Carter swirled around to face Benson, inevitably bringing his weapon to bear on the captain. "I know what I saw!"

The former Prime Team member raised his carbine in a snap to look down the sights, training the weapon on the private and sternly ordered, "Lower your weapon marine!"

The young marine felt another shiver of fear go through him, seeing in the captain's eyes that he would shoot him if he didn't comply with the order. So, he had enough sense to lower his weapon and let it hang by his right thigh by the combat sling. He raised his hands, making sure the captain understood that he was complying with the order. "Yes, sir."

Benson took several calming breaths then lowered his weapon, but kept it cradled in his left palm ready to lift it again at a moment's notice.

Jade walked around the captain and pulled out the hand scanner from her medical tricorder. She raised it to take a scan of the private, but he flinched away. She gave him a stern look and told him, "There is no Wasp, so I'm checking to see if your brain is being affected like the others."

Carter sharply retorted, "There could be on one the station! An Orion pirate could have smuggled one out then to only God knows where else or maybe the Klingons were able to weaponize one?"

"Why would an Orion pirate in their right mind smuggle out something that could eat them? How would the Klingons get one to use as a terror weapon? They'd turn on them and have a plague of them on their hands. If there was, you don't go screaming and shooting wildly at it where you could cause a hull breach or start an avalanche of the cargo. You're being irrational."

The young man frowned and dismissively spat out, "You're just a doctor and a Fleeter at that. What the hell would you know about such things?"

Jade grabbed him by her free hand by the collar, giving him a good shove that pushed him against a stack of cargo.

Carter was startled by the aggressive attitude from the doctor and gave her a dumbfounded expression.

The fierce doctor spat out with a dark glare in her eyes, "You listen to me you snot nosed gomer. My family has been marines for generations going back to the US Marine Corps and MACOs. My grandfather served for twenty-five years and fought more things than your apparent pea-brain mind can fathom. The only reason why I'm not a marine is because you don't have a separate medical corps, remember? I was a corpsman during the summers of medical school, so I have Marine green uniform too that my grandfather just loves displaying at his home on Culden-Feyr where he's enjoying retirement with grandmother, so you need to be careful who you mouth off to… especially with the word 'Fleeter'."

The sandy blonde private thought he was frightened at seeing the Wasp, the look at the pissed off doctor gave him pause and threatened to soil himself.

The sound of footsteps rushing behind them drew Benson's attention, so he snapped around and raised the phaser carbine.

Trina and Tori came turned a corner of crates and came to a sudden stop when they saw they were at the end of a phaser. They quickly threw up their hands.

The captain lowered his weapon and blew out a sigh of relief, "I see you found your sister."

The security officer grinned and nodded her head. "Yeah, I did. What's going on? What are you shooting at?"

Benson answered with a sympathetic tone, "Carter thought he saw a Wasp."

The Vega sisters shared uncomfortable looks at the possibility of one of the scourges of the galaxy running free on the station, insect creatures the size of a humanoid that feasted and used humanoids as incubators for their young.

Trina gathered her wits then looked over to Jade and saw that she had Carter shoved against a stack of crates. She blinked then squinted as she asked, "Why does Jade have Carter shoved against those crates?"

Jade let the marine go and straightened up. She gave him a cold glare and spat out, "He mouthed off at me. He called me a Fleeter."

Trina's mouth formed an 'O' shape, "Oh…"

Tori looked to her older sister and asked, "I don't understand."

"I'll tell you later."

Jade let go of Carter and took a step back. She put on a tight smile and tried to maintain a polite smile as seeing young woman brought up a mix of emotions. "Hello Vega… it's been a long time."

Tori got a good look at the doctor then stuttered, "J-Jade?"

The doctor licked her lips and answered, "Yeah, it's me." She pointed to her hair. "Though, the hair's several shades lighter and I got rid of the piecings and got a medical degree and you… you're a science officer now… and it turns out you were a Klingon this entire time…"

The younger Vega sister awkward smile turned into an embarrassing frown and she dropped her chin.

Trina glared at Jade and hissed out, "This is not the time for you to take a shot from your old one-sided rivalry."

Jade looked to the protective sister and answered in a calm voice, "I'm not taking a shot at her… I'm…" She licked her lips and cocked her head to the side then regretfully remarked, "…I'm shocked that the sweet girl-next-door that everyone loved at school—the envy of the school—lied to us the entire time."

The red shirt security officer whispered out in an accusatory tone, "And if she had told the truth, you would have hammered her over the head the entire time at school her being biologically Klingon."

Jade returned her gaze, but not one of anger, but… disappointment. She quietly replied, "We may have had our problems in the past Trina and at times thought each others were ganks and probably used a few choice words in private of what we thought of each other, but I didn't think you would ever accuse me of being a speciest… or think that Robbie or André or Cat or Beck or most of the school would either. I assume none of them knew until now."

Trina took a sharp breath, her words being quite a sting to her argument.

Tori spoke up, still feeling a little embarrassed, "I didn't lie to anyone Jade. I just… never corrected the assumption. I never thought of myself as Klingon… just the daughter of David and Holly Vega."

An uneasy silence fell among the group as the trio exchanged looks that were filled with mixed emotions of embarrassment, anger and feelings of betrayal. Benson and Carter looked on as outsiders to the emotional conversation. However, Benson interrupted with a commanding voice, "If we can set aside our personal feelings for the moment as professionals and focus on the task at hand…" He looked to Tori and politely asked, "Hello Commander Vega. Are you alright?"

Tori turned her eyes to the captain and she paused, as if really noticing him for the first time. She took a moment to recognize him, remembering the few times they met when he was in L.A. for some holiday to meet up with Jade or at her graduation, and the gold captain braids on the end of the survival jacket. She steadied her nerves and answered, "Hello Captain. I'm… it's been a rough few days."

He supportively smile and replied, "I can only imagine."

The science officer was about to answer, but Trina spoke up, "She's being affected by whatever is messing with Anderson and Isabe…" She turned her eyes to Carter and finished, "…and apparently Carter. We have to get out of here."

"I'm fine," the marine defended his belief in his faculties.

Jade swiftly countered, "You mouthed off at me before I could scan you to confirm that happening or not."

Carter closed his mouth, not wanting to be at the other end of Jade's wrath.

Benson inquisitively asked, "How do you know Lieutenant?"

"Before we arrived, she saw an 'Old King' and right now, the phaser I took from her, she sees it as set for stun but it was a kill level heat setting." She tightened her smile and added, "It's what it was on when she shot the Lieutenant we found and she saw it as stun."

Tori kept her head down, feeling embarrassed and shameful about what happened.

Carter sharply pointed out, "Or she's simply lying."

The quartet turned to look at the marine and he quickly responded with a confident tone towards Jade in particular, "She's Klingon and you just said she's lied to you for years, pretending to be human. We can't just pretend that isn't a security concern." He looked to Benson and added with a curt tone, "Sir."

Benson took a slow breath and just eyed him, not bothering to verbally agree or disagree with his remark.

The science officer offhandedly corrected, "Half-Human/Half-Alpha-Centauran actually."

"A distinction without a real difference," he uttered then quickly followed up, "so why should we trust anything she says? How do we know she didn't help the Klingons find the station and kill the rest of her team?"

"I am not a traitor!"

Carter turned a glare to Tori and pointed out, "You're here and everyone else is conveniently dead."

Benson broke in to cutoff the brewing argument firm voice that left no room for toleration for argument, "Gentleman, ladies, this is not the time or place to have this discussion. We're getting out of here and hoped that Powers and the others have found the last member of the team."

The young marine took several heavy breaths through his nose, darting his eyes back and forth between the captain and Tori. "We should at least stun her and carry her back. We shouldn't risk her contacting anyone or given a weapon. She can't even tell when a phaser is set for stun or not since you're assuming she's telling the truth."

The accusation was borderline disrespectful towards the captain's decision, but he had a point as much as he as reluctant to admit. He looked to the science officer and instructed, "Until we're back on the ship and you've been fully examined and cleared, I think it would be best if your sister held onto your weapon. You have been here the longest, so you'd have the most time exposed to whatever is starting to affect our minds."

The instruction was perhaps a moot point as Trina had pocked the phaser after taking it from her younger sister. Tori bashfully smiled and nodded. "Yes Captain."

"Okay, let's head ba—"

Carter looked wide-eyed past the Vega sisters, shouting out as he raised his carbine, "WASP!"

He was pointing practically at Tori even if his target was most likely behind her. Trina grabbed Tori's arm and yanked her to her, throwing her body to the right and against another stack of crates

A blue phaser beam left the end of Carter's phaser carbine, flying past Tori and striking at the corner of one of the dozen meter high stack of cargo. At some point he had turned his phaser up higher to one of the disruption settings, causing an explosive reaction with the container and its contents.

Jade reached out and grabbed the marine's collar and shouted, "Are you out of your mind?! There's nothing there!"

Carter turned his head and about to reply, but was interrupted with the sound of heavy crumpling of plastic and metal and gaining the other's attention.

The adjacent sides of the destroyed corner to the cargo container crumbled, crushed by the weight of the stacked containers and began tipping towards them as a tower falling. The stack collided into the one diagonally to it, setting off a chain reaction in a domino effect of hitting the neighboring stacks to cause them to start tumbling over.

Benson needlessly shouted, "RUN!"

He reached out and grabbed Jade by the wrist and yanked her as he set off running away from the collapsing billets of cargo. Trina had the same idea as she grabbed her sister's hand and started sprinting to catch up with the captain and doctor, slightly turning to their right in separating from the pair.

Carter remained and stared up dumbfounded as the containers started tumbling. He finally turned to run but it was too late as the massive and towering stacks came crashing down on top of him.

Promenade

'Old King' Station

Sector 2007

Rex had followed the sound of phaser fire to track down the lance corporal past several rings of corridors and rounding a staircase up the deck above the command center and crew quarters. He doubled back down the above corridor that he had chased her down. The corridor emptied out to a large circular open strip mall that had various storefronts that were abandoned. There was a second level where he could see a series of tall windows and the swirling gases outside.

He carefully started walking down the circular path, hugging the side towards the storefronts and listening out for Isabe as the phaser shots ceased. He was glad and worried at the same time. One hand, she couldn't accidentally shoot out a window and cause them to be blown out into space, on the other, he didn't have a clue where she could be hiding and she could start imaging that he was a Kzinti. He might be able to take a low level heat shot, but after that, he was just as vulnerable as any organic being to the higher shots.

He drew his phaser pistol and glanced down to double check the setting was on stun, but with her body armor, there was serious doubt that the setting would get through it. He set it to maximum stun, enough to put her down for about an hour if she's hit with it on a clear spot.

He took an unneeded breath then continued his search for the missing corporal.

* * *

The avalanche of cargo finally stopped after several harrowing seconds until it reached nearly the end of the cargo hold, leaving an eerie silence filling the large cargo bay, the only sound punctuating the quietness was the occasional sorting out sound of the overhead lights.

Benson had thrown himself onto the deck, sliding across it several meters as the top of one of the falling stacks had reached the floor and the rolling cargo drums had nearly caught up with him. He shoved the heavy plastic drum that had rolled to him and pulled himself up. He took several deep breaths and glanced around, seeing that most of the stacked cargo from the initial stack had knocked over nearly everything to the end of the cargo hold. He began to shout as he glanced around, "Jade! Trina! Carter!"

"Captain!"

He snapped around and saw Trina and Tori climbing over some of the cargo on his left side, apparently able to clear the falling cargo by rushing to the outside edge of the hold. "Are you alright?"

The security officer nodded her head and answered, "Yeah, we're…" She glanced over to her left to steal a glance from Tori do double check. The younger sister nodded her head, still catching a little of her breath. "…we're fine. Where's Jade?"

"I don't know. I had her hand then…" He turned to his right and started shouting, "Jade! Jade!"

There was no immediate answer and his blood ran cold. He took several deep breaths to clear his mind and look at the situation in a professional manner. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a micro-tricorder. He pressed the side button for the pop-up screen to rise and began scanning for lifeforms. In the immediate area he picked up his own and the Vega sisters behind him, but nothing else on the screen. He started sweeping it about and double back to search.

"I can't pick her up or Carter."

Trina sung the tricorder hanging by her left hip and flipped the top to activate it. She began scanning for lifeforms, but there was just mass of biomass.

A blip finally showed on Freddie's tricorder screen followed by muffled cries, "Freddie! Freddie!"

His blood froze in his veins at the panic he heard in Jade's voice. He scrambled towards the sound of it, climbing over several crates and barrels. He heard the cries under a smaller pile of cargo, but froze in shock for a moment as he saw seeping out of the boxes a bit of gory mess and some liquid.

He pocked the tricorder then frantically started grabbing the boxes and tossed one away after the other. Trina and Tori joined him and pulled the smaller pieces and barrels away until they found Jade covering her face with her right arm. Her lower half at about her waist was covered with one of the larger ones, directly under a pile that tipped over. He saw that the cargo containers had separated, sliding past one another and bracing against each other to leave a triangle wedge with the deck and Jade trapped in it.

She dropped her arm and looked alright for a moment. She looked up at him with a nearly panicked expression and answered with a short breath, "Hey."

He knelt down to her and grasped her right hand, curling his fingers over the back of her hand. He gave her a relieved smile and whispered, "Hey." He brushed over her forehead to move away loose hair off of it and asked, "Are you alright?"

Tori rushed over the best she could manage and knelt down to Jade's left side, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder since her other arm was trapped underneath that container.

Jade looked down to see her trapped body and clenched her teeth and hissed, "I… I don't think so… the container broke my tricorder and med kit… and I think it broke my right hip in the process." She looked back up with an embarrassed expression and added, "I feel kind of damp below my waist, so I'm either bleeding… or I soiled myself… embarrassing either way…"

He nodded his head, trying to keep his composure then answered, "It'll just be our secret. We're going to get you out of this and back to the ship." He looked over the fallen stacks of cargo, seeing that it was a smaller stack that got knocked over, but they still looked pretty heavy and they looked wedged against one another and against the base of another stack that had been knocked over. There were a few other pieces from another stack fallen on top of them. He realized that they couldn't dig her way out, but if they could get a lever, they perhaps could lift it just enough to pull her out without it collapsing on top of her.

He reached for his communicator to pull it from his belt then flipped open the gold grill. "Benson to Tori, I need those marines over here now with a medical stretcher and make sure they're the strongest marines the major has. They need to do some heavy lifting. Hell, draft any Vulcan and Rigellian onboard too."

Robbie's voice answered, _"What happened?"_

"Carter—a stack of cargo fell, knocking a lot of it over like dominos. Doctor West is trap under a pile of cargo. She has internal injuries and the three of us can't dig her out."

" _Understood, but captain, the station is accelerating towards the planet due to a snowballing effect of the planet gathering up the surrounding stellar gases and pushing it down, so you're down to half an hour."_

Jade quietly called up, "Freddie?"

He looked down at her and saw that she was pushing the pain down to speak in a surprisingly serene voice, "They're not going to be able to dig me out in time."

Jade's blue eyes, always showing a fierce independence and confidence that stuck fear in most people that met her eyes showed a quiet peace. He knew she was right. It would take them a good ten minutes to get from the ship to the station then probably another ten just to get to them through all the fallen mess.

He took a deep breath then spoke into his communicator, "New plan Commander. Lock onto Jade's signal and find a way to beam her out. I don't care what you have to do, but make it happen."

" _Aye sir."_

Jade tightened her grip on his hand and whispered with a tremor in her voice, "I don't want to die as scrambled molecules."

He leaned a little further to her and whispered, "You won't. I promise." He squared his jaw then snapped his head to Trina. "Vega… and Vega, get the others and get to the shuttle. You're getting off this tin can."

Tori gave the captain a curious gaze, not understanding his order to just leave them behind. Trina frowned and replied, "We are not leaving you and Jade."

"And how do you think you can help? We're not going to be able to dig her out together. A beam out is going to be tricky enough with two, least long four."

The older Vega sister looked like she wanted to argue, but Benson cut her off before she could speak, "That wasn't a request Lieutenant."

Jade called up with a strained voice laced with pain, "Don't argue with him Trina."

The security officer frowned and despite the look in her eyes that said she wanted to argue with him, she answered, "Yes sir." She turned and started on her way back to the nearest exit to the corridor back to the main section.

Tori kept her place and politely refused, "Captain Benson… you can't order us to leave you and Jade behind."

Benson squared his jaw and answered in a curt tone, "I certainly can Commander. Your safety is my responsibility and you staying here is a pointless danger to put you in."

Jade called out with a laugh, "She's just as pigheaded as you at times… loyal to a fault even if you're a gank to her. It's why I always thought you were around when I was in Los Angeles, so I wouldn't count on her necessarily following the order."

Benson frowned downed to Jade for trying to excuse the clearly insubordinate behavior, but even as captain, he knew he wouldn't be able to argue with her. She was always in a category of her own. He looked back to Tori and stated, "I understand the sentiment, but unless you are somehow a help other than just staying here or find a way to slow down time, then you are a distraction."

Tori shamefully glanced down, understanding his point that staying there just to hold Jade's hand was not a productive action and could actually unnecessarily risk her life. However, an idea popped into her head and answered, "Maybe I can."

The captain knotted his brow and asked, "What?"

"We were able to get the gravity station-keeping functioning to keep us in orbit after the last gaseous release, so…" She slightly nodded her head and continued, "…are they still working? Couldn't it buy us enough time?"

Trina shook her head and answered, "The thing can't keep us in orbit now and the reactor is already leaking radiation. If you put anymore power into it, we might just cook ourselves in radiation."

The younger Vega sister palmed over her mouth, taking a few seconds to think then suggested, "Then we use what we have. I may have got the controls to work, but I have just basic helm training and I'm not a physicist to be able to calculate the best orbital approach with the 'thrust' we have."

Benson felt a renewed sense of hope and replied, "Fortunately, we have one. Get to the ops station and get Rex on the controls. I happen to be a physicist and I'll work on the…" He trailed off when he realized that he'd have to leave Jade to go to the operations center.

He looked down at Jade, momentarily trapped in his decision to stay with her to let her know he wouldn't abandon her or go and buy them the time they needed to save her.

Jade gave him a smile to get him off the hook and mouthed, "Go."

Trina placed a hand on his left shoulder and suggested, "You stay here captain. I'll contact Robbie if we need help with the calculations. He has a whole science department. We'll get this station to fly."

Benson tightened his jaw for a moment then nodded his head. "Go."

Trina nodded her head. "Yes sir." She turned with Tori to start maneuvering and climbing over the fallen cargo to get to one of the exits.

Benson settled down to have a seat, never letting go of Jade's hand. He reassuringly smiled and spoke, "It's going to be okay Jade. Robbie and Sinjin will get you out of here."

"That mop-headed freak is going to get me out of this?" She laughed, "I thought you were trying to make me feel better—oww!?" She squinted and hissed as she clenched her jaw, "Okay, laughing hurts."

He kissed the back of her hand he was holding and told her, "Then don't laugh and trust that they're going to come through." He reached into one of the little pockets on his belt and pulled out a painkiller prick for emergencies. He let go of her hand and was about to pull off the cap, but she called out, "I need to remain alert and conscious."

"This won't put you out," he answered with a knotted brow.

Jade sighed out, "I can deal with a little pain."

He reluctantly sighed and put it back onto the little pouch then retook her hand.

* * *

Author's Note: Okay, that went from bad to worst, but I think the emotional points brought up between Jade and Tori might be the greatest conflict. Stay tuned for the continuing adventure of the crew of the USS Tori.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello dear readers. I hope everyone had a nice holiday and will enjoy this new chapter.

Fanfic-Reader-88: She got mad with the Fleeter insult as her family history is with the Marines and he had the nerve to look down at her for it. He did get off lucky with her, but will he later on? That's the question.

Rating: T Violence

* * *

Chapter 6

USS Tori

Robbie was hunched over the sensor hood at his station. He prioritized the sensors to keep a lock on Jade's biosign and her communicator, already having fed the coordinates to the transporter room. He pressed the white control stud to the communication panel at his station on his right with his thumb and called out, "Sinjin, how's that transporter coming?"

" _I'm working on it. We have her position, but the ionization is getting worst. I'm going to try to boost the power and dedicate more computer power to compensate for any… scrambling, but the least amount of interference she'd have to go through, the better."_

Robbie looked over his left shoulder and ordered, "Harris, take the helm and gets us right the edge of that gravitational field."

"Right," the senior navigator acknowledged and swung out of his seat and took over from the relief helmsman who smoothly gave up the seat. The gold shirt enlisted man rounded the front of the duel consoles and took over for navigation.

André carefully rolled the pads of his fingers over the controls, easing the ship forward in its orbit of the planet with station keeping thrusters. He looked into the raised tactical display from the helm, tracking the speed and distance towards the station. They were closing towards it at several meters per second. He called out, "It might get a little bumpy with the gases."

"Cat, sound yellow alert and send ship-wide to prepare for turbulence."

"'Kay, 'kay!" the dutiful communications officer quickly typed away at her station.

Trina and Tori were halfway to the Ops Center when the older sister pulled her communicator from her belt and flipped it open. She waited for the beep then called out, "Rex, are you still in Ops?"

" _No, Isabe thought she saw a Kzinti and she went after it. I'm chasing her."_

"Forget her. Get back to Ops. Jade's trapped under a stack of cargo and we need to keep this station in orbit long enough for them to get her out."

" _Jank,"_ he hissed from the other end. _"Fine, I'll get back there."_

"You better!" She closed the communicator and picked up her running.

Promenade  
'Grey Station'

Rex came to an abrupt stop from his careful stalking of hugging the side of the abandoned storefronts. He crouched down and spotted her crossing a bridge from the outer ring of the second deck to the inner ring. She was frantically sweeping her phaser pistol in broad arcs, almost hyperaware of her surroundings and trying to spot her quarry.

He glanced around to see how he could get to her without being shot, fortunately spotting a spiral staircase on the inside ring of stores next to one of the support columns that led to the second floor.

She turned to look in the opposite direction and he took the advantage to cross the bottom level to get to the stairs. He reached them without being spotted and quietly walked up the stairs to reach the second floor in a secluded spot behind the column. He braced his back against it and took a quick peek around the corner to see that she had crossed over and turned left to head in his direction.

The helm officer quietly waited for her as she carefully walked down the ring, carefully putting one foot in front of the other. He remained fairly calm while she was getting more and more agitated, unable to spot her prey in the eerie and poorly lit station with random noises of the falling apart station.

She took one stride past the support beam, ready to turn to see if something was waiting behind it for her, but was too slow to fire as Rex reached out and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her to him and pressing her back against his chest. He grabbed her other her other arm to secure it before she could attempt an escape or switch the phaser to her other hand. She instantly began struggling, trying to jerk out of his grip, but he was far stronger than her.

He snapped in an instant, "Isabe! Stop!"

The young marine suddenly froze, apparently recognizing his voice, and turned her head to look over her shoulder. She looked to him with a panicked look in her eyes that darted about. She hissed out, "Let me go! There's a Kzinti on the station."

He growled out with very little patience, "Listen to me. Don't be a fool. There is no Kzinti on the station. Their system is thousands of light years away and you know the station is playing with your head. It's making you think you saw something that isn't there. The same thing happened to the survey crew and they wound up killing each other."

Isabe took several deep breaths, looking at him from the corner of her black eye. She quietly muttered, "I know what I saw, but… if it's not real, how do I know you're real?"

"If I wasn't real, I couldn't be holding you."

She looked doubtful, debating whether her senses had become so unreliable she couldn't trust anything including whether she was actually trapped in his arms.

He sighed out with the same little patience he had with Robbie most of the time, "Fine, could you imagine this?"

He cocked his head and crashed his lips against her mouth.

Isabe rapidly blinked, shocked from the contact then closed her eyes and returned the kiss with a slight whimper of approval.

He pulled back, grinning with self-satisfaction, and chuckled, "So? Think I'm still imaginary?"

The marine blinked several times then touched her lips and cleared her throat, trying to suppress the soft hue of blue on her cheeks. She muttered several times before she got out, "No, ah… you're real…"

"Good, now that we've settled that. We need to get back to Ops. Something happened in the cargo hold and Doctor West is trapped under a pile of cargo, so we have to keep the station from plunging deeper into the atmosphere until they can get her out."

Her eyes went wide then nodded her head in acknowledgement. "Okay…"

Rex took her hand and pulled her along to head back down to the lower deck.

Cargo Hold  
'Grey Station'

Benson glanced around, trying to see if he could find anything for use as a lever because he couldn't just sit around and wait for everyone else to do something. He thought perhaps he could cut one of the cross flat pieces of a pallet from the neighboring fallen cargo with his phaser and use it.

As he was debating that idea, he casually remarked, "Maybe we can turn off the gravity? I could shove this stuff away with one good push."

Jade closed her eyes and took a few heavy breaths to try to fight the pain down, perhaps regretting turning him down for the painkiller. She really wished she could reach for her medical kit, but the various medications she carried were probably smashed in the bag. She just hoped they didn't leak through the bag and she had an open wound. She didn't want to think what such a cocktail could do to her.

She huffed out, "The pressure is probably the only thing keeping me from bleeding internally."

He pulled out his micro-tricorder and started running a scan over her. It wasn't as versatile as the standard models, but it could at least tell him the basics. He ran a quick scan over her, seeing that her vitals were fluctuating, but not indicating that her injuries were at the moment life threatening.

"I've lost feeling in my right leg, lack of blood flow. I'll either be out of here or dead before I risk losing the leg from the lack of blood."

"Oh no… we're getting out of here and you're going to relax for the next week. Have your staff wait on you hand and foot. You'll have to be the stubborn patient."

Jade laughed, "That'll be the day…" She looked at him with a tired express then breathed out, "If you can't… don't you stay here with me. Get back to the ship and tell my mom and brother I love them."

He shook his head and replied, "Oh no, don't get all fatalistic on me. We're both getting out of here. They'll be a way." He stood up and let her hand go walking to one of the exposed pallet's that had fallen behind him. He gripped the side and gave it a few good yanks, partially pulling it free.

The doctor snorted out a laugh, "So you think there's a way out of this? Isn't that what all cadets say when they take… what do they call it? The kashibai maroon? The no-win scenario? There's no solution."

Benson pulled his sidearm out and turned it to the setting to heat. "It's the Kobayashi Maru and yes… the no-win scenario. Every cadet that is looking into the command track takes it before leaving the academy or ROTC program and I haven't met anyone who didn't think they couldn't beat it, but this isn't it."

"Don't they say that before they know they can't win?"

He squeezed the trigger and the blue beam shot out at the metal, quickly heating through it like a torch. He cut through the end then pointed his phaser at the other end and fired again. The piece was cut away and Benson holstered his weapon. He pulled the piece away and walked back to Jade. He knelt down by her left shoulder, looking for the best place to try to wedge the piece between the crates and wait for the ends to cool enough.

"Perhaps, but I don't see how this is the case. It's not just my command decisions that are being tested. There's Robbie and Sinjin and the others doing their part to get us out of this and all those cadets miss the point of the test."

"And what's the point?"

"It's not about 'beating it' and that's what they get hung up on. It's a character test. It's to see how one responds to a situation and what it reveals about themselves. Are they capable of command? Do they have the character to command?"

Jade remained quiet for a moment then looked back up at him and asked, "You had to take it before you got into the Prime Teams? Right?"

Benson nodded and answered, "Yeah."

"What did it reveal about you in these kinds of situations? The ones that looked un-winnable?"

He glanced away for a moment then answered, "That I wouldn't go gently into that good night… I would rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Jade squinted, feeling as if she had heard those words from somewhere else. The familiarity reminded her of her literature classes in high school and asked, "Isn't that from a poem?"

"Yes, Dylan Thomas, early Twentieth-Century Earth, so… I'm not giving up on us." He stood up and lined one end of the metal slab towards the crates after he saw it was cool enough for his purposes.

Jade nodded her head and whispered, "Okay…"

As Benson was preparing to try to pry and lift the top crate off of her, a quiet and familiar voice called out toward her right, "So… you're just as trapped as I was?"

Jade turned her head to the left and lifted her chin to spot Carly, Carly Shay standing over her and menacingly smiling.

She muttered in disbelief, "Carly?"

The dark haired young woman's smile grew and she answered, "Oh yes baby sister, it's me."

Ops Center

Rex and Isabe beat the sisters back to the command center and the helm officer returned to his original station, monitoring the station's descent as Trina and Tori rushed inside. He turned to see the sisters enter and asked, "What happened to Jade? How is she trapped?"

"That jarhead shot at an imaginary Wasp and hit the bottom of one of the cargo stack. He took out most of the bottom and it just came down like a tree, taking anything in its path. Jade got caught under one of the stacks and we can't dig her out in time."

Isabe asked with a concern gaze, even if it was hard to see with her black eyes, "What about Carter?"

Trina took a breath to calm her nerves, knowing that despite how angry she was towards him, she had to be courteous and sensitive to his fellow marines. "He got crushed under the pile. We didn't pick up any lifesigns."

Rex sucked a breath through his teeth and muttered, "Chizz…"

Isabe covered her mouth and Anderson turned back to the console he was attending, suppressing a visible reaction.

"We'll get him later. Right now, keep this station in orbit until Robbie and Sinjin can figure out how to beam them out."

"Right…" Rex answered and turned back to the controls.

Tori tapped Anderson to give up the neighboring seat to Rex, taking it when he slipped out of it then started typing on the computer.

Rex finally took a good look at Tori and teasingly commented, "Hey Tori. You're looking good in blue."

Tori knotted her brow, glancing over to him and asked, "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

Rex grinned and answered, "Oh yeah you do sweet cheeks."

The science officer knotted her brow, taking a good look at the junior lieutenant, seeing a familiar look in his face.

Trina quickly cut him off, "Not now Rex. We got to get the station from falling into the planet until we can get Jade out."

Tori turned a confused look to Trina and asked, "Rex?"

The older Vega sister forced a smile and replied, "I'll explain later. Focus."

The helm officer turned his full attention on the console and answered, "Fine… I'm trying to stabilize the orbit, but she handles like a pregnant whale."

The science officer started typing and answered, "It's a space station, not a starship. The system is for course corrections, not for extensive movement."

"Well it's going to have to unless we want to be cooked or crushed."

Anderson stood over Tori's right side and asked, "Are we sure we can't give it more power? Sinjin always seems to have the extra power and the only thing we need to power is that."

Rex shook his head. "No. If we increase power, we'll flood the whole area with radiation. It's already leaking down there. The station's just too big with the power we have to try to get some distance from the planet. The best I can hope for to try to level off the trajectory. We're just to massive verses the thrust we have."

Trina knotted her brow as an idea struck her. "Why not make the station smaller?"

The pair looked over their respective shoulders, giving her equally curious expressions.

"The station is modular. We saw it from outside. The cargo tubes are clearly meant to be swapped out and those square ones looked like they're attached the same way. Why not just jettison them?"

Tori answered with an almost giddy tone, "She's right. If we dump the cargo cylinders and their attached cubes…" She rapidly typed into her PADD to recalculate the thrust-to-mass ratio with a less massive station. "Yes. If we ditch the pods, we should have plenty of thrust to stabilize our orbit, perhaps even break it."

Rex hastily added, "And get us out of this ion interference to use the transporters."

Trina pointed out, "Jade and the captain is still in one of the tubes, so you can't dump that one."

"We'll leave that one and maintain orbit and then some." She looked over her shoulder to see one of the monitors displaying the ship getting closer to the station. "You better call the ship to tell them what we're doing."

Trina looked to Anderson and ordered, "Inform the ship what we're planning."

The marine nodded in acknowledgement as Trina palmed over the headrest of Tori's seat and asked, "Okay, what do you need to do?"

"I need to get into the station operations and hopefully override any kind of safety protocols to disengage the pods since there must be some kind of procedure in place to safely disengage them, but we don't have the time to go through such a checklist. We were barely able to get the controls working before I ran into some command lockouts, just like the ones that Klingons use on their ships with their slave races. I don't know if I can get through them fast enough if there are any."

The older sister nodded her head then looked to Rex. "Have Rex look at it."

"Is he a computer expert?"

"No, he's an android and can do it a lot faster than you."

"An android?" She knotted her brow, studying his features and realized he bore a resemblance to Robbie's old ventriloquist puppet years ago. "Rex… You're not…"

"Oh Tori, we can catch up later, but right now… let's sweet talk a computer."

The lovely science officer's jaw dropped, realizing to whom she was speaking.

Cargo Hold

Benson shoved the end of the piece of metal at the point between the edges of the two crates Jade was trapped under. He growled as he pulled it right and left, trying to dig between the crates to get his improvised lever. He glanced down to see that Jade was focused on something else, looking past him. He huffed out a breath as he worked to separate the crates enough to get the end of the plate, "Jade talk to me… let me know you're not going into shock."

Jade momentarily ignored him as she clenched her jaw and saw the image of Carly looked down at her with a disappointed gaze.

'Carly' snorted out with disgust, "I bet you're just loving him being so concern with you… willing to risk his life for you. I always had a feeling that you had a thing for him, especially after you broke up with Beck."

She knelt down and cocked her head to the side. She put on a lazy expression and continued, "What? You couldn't find happiness with him? Always had to fight with him? You couldn't stand that I and Freddie were happy while you and Beck always fought like cats and dogs? He'd push your buttons and you had to be mean to everyone."

The doctor blinked, trying to ignore the pain and her vicious attacks that tried to strike at her soul. She knew Carly couldn't be standing there, mocking her. Carly was dead, buried and in Heaven.

"Is that why you wanted me to visit him during his training? You wanted me to get on that shuttle and die so you could have him all to yourself."

Jade clenched her jaw and glared at the image of the deceased young woman. "You were my sister… no, just the pathetic step-sister. I thought you loved me. I thought you actually cared about me, but no… you left me in that shuttle… you let me die in there while you walked away from it."

Jade shook and mumbled, "No, I didn't."

Benson was about to start pushing down on the flat beam, but asked, "You didn't do what?"

Jade looked to him and mumbled, "Nothing…" She shook her head, fighting back what looked like tears.

He couldn't miss the moisture forming in her eyes and assured her, "It's alright to be afraid, but you're going to be okay. I'm going to get you out of here."

A voice behind him called out, "Really? You're really going to save her or are you really just going to be responsible for another one of my daughter's deaths?"

Benson knotted his brow, not believing the voice he heard over his shoulder. He turned to see his former father-in-law standing proudly in his Rear Admiral's uniform with a stern expression on his face. He snorted out in disgust, "You're not real and I don't have time to play with you."

He turned back to the task at hand and pushed down the end of the long plate with both palms with his fingers curled over the edge of the plate and putting his weight down on it.

The image of Admiral Shay questioned, "Really, you're just going to turn your back on me?"

"You're a couple of thousand light years away. You're just something implanted into my head." He grunted as he put a little more pressure down on the slab of metal, seeing the crate start to creak and slightly rise, allowing more of the end of the makeshift level to slip between the crates. "What exactly are you? Really? Some advance artificial intelligence from the builders of this station installed to help run the place? Maybe you're some non-corporeal lifeform getting his or her kicks out of pretending to be a ghost? Right now, I don't care."

The image behind Benson's back frowned, apparently displeased that the captain had seen through the rouse so quickly.

"I'm standing right here. You see me and you hear me."

Benson pushed a little harder on the plate, lifting the crate just a little higher and starting to take pressure off Jade's right hip and perhaps give her enough room to slide out, but the plate started to bend under the pressure.

"Yet I know Steven Shay isn't here and I know there's something on the station that is stimulating our brain. I may be seeing, hearing and conversing with you, but I know you can't be here. I have the ability to believe things I can't see, so it's not that hard to disbelieve things I can see."

The plate suddenly bent, causing him to lose his leverage and the crate dropped back, but with the thinness of the plate to keep them separate by a centimeter.

"CHIZZ!" Jade screamed out as the pressure returned on her hip.

"Damn," he mumbled under his breath then dropped to his knees. He took Jade by the hand again and whispered, "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

She licked her lips then huffed out, "I'm okay, I'm okay… I think it was more of the shock of it falling than anything. I feel a little pressure off the hip."

"I'll get you out of there. I just need a sturdier lever." He turned his head to look back over at the pallet, wondering if he could cut out two of them and melt them together to make a stronger lever.

Carly's image smirked and mocked, "You really are one selfish bitch aren't you? You always harassed Beck about having female friends because you were so selfish…" She smirked and raised an eyebrow and voice turned sweeter. "…or was it because you realized that if he actually spent time with someone else, he'd realize how lousy you were as a girlfriend? I think it's a bit of both, but as selfish as I knew you always were, I didn't think you would be selfish enough to want to keep Freddie here to die with you."

Jade jerked her head to the side and shouted, "Shut up! You're not Carly!"

Benson was momentarily startled by her outburst, but quickly recovered and glanced over in the direction she shouted. He didn't see anything, so he quickly figured that the one behind the images had turned it on her to imagine Carly. He gently took her chin with his left hand to turn her head to look at him. "Jade, look at me. Focus on me."

Jade blinked and took a few quick breaths then met his eyes.

He sweetly smiled and gently squeezed her hand and whispered, "If you're seeing Carly, she isn't real. This is real. I am real and you are real and whoever is talking to you isn't. I need you to remember that. Ignore whatever she's saying. She's not real."

She nodded her head and mumbled as a tear did fall from an eye, "I'm sorry…"

"For what?"

"For Carly… if I hadn't… if I didn't want to…"

"Shhh…" he softly hushed her and leaned down to kiss her forehead. He whispered against her forehead, "You didn't do anything wrong. It was just a nice little surprise you wanted to give us."

The figure of Admiral Shay called out behind him, "You really believe that? You really don't blame her for anything?"

He turned his head and looked at the figure his brain told him was there but his eyes didn't see. He snorted out a breath in dismissal, "Whoever you are… go climb a tree."

Jade lifted her chin and glanced back and saw nothing. She turned her eyes back on him and asked, "Who are you talking to?"

"Whatever is projecting into our heads is showing me your dad."

"What is he telling you?"

"I'm going to let another of his daughters die and that I should blame you for Carly."

Jade closed her eyes and whispered, "You didn't let Carly die. I did."

Benson took a deep breath then calmly yet firmly answered, "She died in a shuttle accident. A stupid tragic shuttle accident because a faulty piece in it. It wasn't the maintenance crew's fault or the pilot or your fault. It simply happened."

She opened her eyes, filled with shame and pain. She softly uttered, "It shouldn't have happened…"

Carly knelt down on the other side of Jade's head again, but this time next to the bent metal beam. She cocked her head to the side and mocked, "He's just lying to you. He knows it was your fault and a piece of him hates you for it. You're the one that should have died, not me. You were the mean bitch all through high school to everyone while I was… everyone loved me and why not? I cared about everyone. The wrong sister died that day… the one that everyone cared about."

Jade closed her eyes, took several deep breaths then opened her eyes again to meet his soft brown eyes. She whispered barely above the sound of the shorting out lights, "Freddie? Do you hate me? Hate me for surviving and she didn't?"

"Of course he hates you," Carly confidently mocked.

Benson let out a tired breath and admitted, "I… hated myself for being there in the first place for there to visit. I could have gotten a nice civil research job in Seattle or L.A. or someplace else and never joined the service, but… I had to go out there and explore… I wanted to see what was out here for myself and Carly… she loved me to be married to a Star Fleet officer. I thought if anyone was going to die because of my decision, it would be me, not her."

They remained quiet for several moments before Jade asked, "Do you still hate yourself?"

He snorted out a laugh and let go of her hand then stood up, walking back to the pallet he had gotten his first plate of metal, "We have more important things to worry about whether I hate myself or not."

Jade frowned at his 'answer' then slightly turned her head and asked, "What are you doing?"

He yanked on pallet, throwing himself backwards to free more and more of it from the fallen crates, and huffed out with each tug, "If they're not… strong enough to… make a level, I'll make a… wedge big enough… to get you out."

He grinned when he pulled more than half of it out. He pulled out his phaser again and set it for heat. He held onto another cross piece and fired the weapon to start cutting through the end.

* * *

Author's note: Okay, things have gone from bad to worst, but we'll see if our intrepid crew can get out of this alive. Take care, OneHorseShay.


	7. Chapter 7

Hello dear readers, hope you've had a nice week. I put off updating this for about a week out of respect to Liz from her appendectomy as where we left off, Jade wasn't in the best of shape. Since Liz is doing better, I feel comfortable posting this final chapter.

Guest: Rex is an android, but he's not a Soonge type android as Data or Lore or B4. Explaining what type he is or explaining how he came to be would be spoilers for any future stories I may have for this crew.

The USS Tori and a USS Vega come from the list of starships of the TOS Era from the famous Star Trek, Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph from 1975. The USS Tori was proposed as a Constitution class ship as early as 1967 for the Series Bible by D.C. Fontana, writer and script editor on TOS as a way to show that the fleet was truly a united Earth having ships named for American, British, Russian and in case of the Tori, Japanese naval vessels. I just couldn't resist picking that ship and commenting on the Vega for a Victorious mesh up.

Trina is a Star Fleet officer and chief of security for the ship, more of a law enforcement role on the ship in the footsteps of her dad in being a cop. She's basically in charge of the military police on the ship. The Marines are a separate military branch and used to supplement the ship's security (the red shirts).

Fanfic-Reader-88: Rex clearly isn't a one woman man as we know how he liked to flirt with multiple girls in the series and it is the twenty-third century, so cultural etiquette isn't going to be the same as our present day etiquette. The visions are very haunting to the mind… We'll see if our heroes can get out of this situation.

Well, onto the story.

Rating: T Sci-Fi Violence

* * *

Chapter 7

Tori muttered in frustration as she typed away, "The system is locking me out of disengaging the docking clamps. It's like it's almost intelligent. It's an impressive adaptive defensive program."

Trina pointed out, "Maybe it is intelligent?

The younger brunette knotted her brow and glanced over her shoulder, "What?"

The security officer leaned between the science officer and helmsmen to point out, "Something is making us hear and see things and do you think an automotive system could be so precise? It made you and the rest of the team see Klingons—even have an imaginary firefight with them. It made Carter see a Wasp and it made Isabe see a Kzinti. Star Fleet has run into a few advance AIs. Chizz, Rex here is one. Who says they didn't make one?"

Tori looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow, suddenly feeling stupid as if the thought never occurred to her. The 'Old Kings' were at least as advance as the Federation hundreds of years ago and they were experimenting with artificial intelligence with the development of the M-Five by the famous Daystrom and they would soon be testing it in the field, so why not them?

Rex interrupted, "Hey, I'm not exactly artificial, just my body."

Trina shook her head and muttered, "Not now Rex."

Tori interrupted before they could get into an argument, "Okay, assume you're right; how do we out think a machine that can think faster than us and calculate all the possibilities?"

Rex started typing faster on his PADD and answered, "By overwhelming it. We'll double team it and if it's an adaptable program or a genuine A.I., let's see if it can keep up with both of us. I'll distract it while you get past the lockouts."

Tori nodded her head and started typing away to look for any openings Rex could make while his fingers flew across the keyboard almost at blinding speed and that she could exploit.

Trina watched in mild astonishment at the work the pair were attempting, but she had another brute force approach. "I'm going to try to find a more direct approach. Where's the security station? The ones they have on Klingon ships?"

Tori nodded her head back and answered, "Through that door. We thought it was the station administrator's office."

"Logical place to have it," Trina muttered as she approached the room. She was within a foot of it when she bumped into a force field that shimmered gold from her contact, throwing her back. Fortunately, Anderson was behind her and caught her. She straightened up and put on a fierce expression.

Isabe commented, "I guess it realized what you wanted to do."

"Well I'm not going to let a little force field get in my way…" She lifted her carbine and turned the phaser setting up to three-quarters, a high disruption setting that one wouldn't use on people unless one was particularly cruel.

The marines realized what she was doing and set their carbines to the same setting. They raised their phasers in unison and aimed at fairly that same spot.

Trina ordered, "Fire."

Bridge  
USS Tori

On the viewscreen, the bridge crew watched the station continued to slowly rotating as it sank deeper into the atmosphere, disappearing completely into the upper atmosphere with gases sliding over the top of the antigravity bubble.

Robbie was looking at the various monitors at his station and ordered without a second thought, "Stay with them."

André's hands remained steady on the helm controls, but answered, "If we go in there after them, we may have to raise the shields and if we do that…"

The science officer never sought command and if it was up to him, he'd only be the chief science officer and not doing double duty as executive officer because he knew deep down that he wasn't command material. However, Freddie had disagreed and encouraged him to be more, push to keep his unrestricted line officer status up-to-date to keep the option open of commanding a starship one day. After all, he rose through the science division for command while almost everyone else did it through the obvious command track of navigation, helm or tactical.

However, this was one of those times where had to step up to be worthy of taking the center seat and he wasn't going to let his friends down over his own insecurities.

He took a deep breath then ordered with as much confidence as he could muster, "Keep the shields down and turn navigational deflectors to full strength." He looked over his right shoulder and ordered, "Cat, sound evacuation from the outer section of the bow decks." He turned to look across the bridge and followed up, "Environmental control, once people are cleared of those sections, seal off those decks."

"Aye sir."

Robbie looked to the screen, seeing the swirling gases close enough to reach out and touch. He gave one last order, "Commander Harris… follow them in."

"Aye sir."

* * *

The mighty starship accelerated forward, diving into the clouds, her navigational deflector pushing against the thick and whirling atmosphere, clearing them a path until it reached the other edge of the station's gravitational field and regaining a visual on the slightly spinning station. The around them the torrent of gases whipped past and formed a teardrop shape around the ship, bracketing it on either side but she held her bearing.

Ops Center

The three blue beams hit the force field, causing it to shimmer over nearly the entire surface as it attempted to repeal the phaser fire and turning a greenish color at the point of contact.

Rex noticed one of the indicators for the power rise, so he called out, "Hey Trina, the station is drawing more power trying to hold the field, so… we're either sinking or we're about to get flooded with radiation."

"Cease fire," the security officer ordered as she released the trigger.

The marines ceased fire and the power levels dropped back down.

"Okay, if we can't get through the field…" She walked around Isabe and pointed her weapon at the right doorframe to her.

Isabe and Anderson understood her intention and pointed to the opposite side and above the door.

"Fire."

The blue beams lashed out again, striking the frame and the metal melting and exploding outwards in a spray of sparks. The force field shimmered for a moment then winked out.

Anderson pulled out his combat knife and walked to the door, knowing that they had to have destroyed the door sensor and the mechanism to pull them apart. He shoved the blade into the seam then worked the knife back and forth to pry the door open. Once he parted it enough, he got his fingers through and grabbed the left door. Isabe stood beside him and got her fingers inside to pull on the opposite door. They simultaneously pulled, pushing the doors aside and allowing entry into the office.

The three stepped inside the room, ready for anything to jump out at them, whether real or imaginary.

Tori grinned as she found her opening into the system and typed as fast as she could manage to exploit the opening. "I got it! I can disengage the cargo tubes."

"Stop!"

The Star Fleeters and marines turned to the sound of the voice. Trina, Tori and Anderson saw a being standing about two meters tall in the center of the room. It was grey with a slightly disproportional large head with two slanted almond black eyes. Isabe squinted, seeing a distorted blob of mess she couldn't quite comprehend.

The marines instantly raised their weapons, but refrained from firing as they didn't have a clear silhouette behind the creature to not hit the others.

It appeared to look directly at Tori and demanded without any apparent facial muscle movements, "You can't do that! You can't help them tear this station apart!"

Tori frowned at him and sharply retorted, "If you haven't noticed, we're plunging into the planet. We have to dump the cargo holds if we want the rest of the station to survive!" She turned her back to the image of the creature that had ruled over the Klingons for centuries.

Trina demanded, "Who the Hell are you?"

Rex squinted his eyes and demanded, "Who are you talking to?"

The marines and Trina turned their heads to see Rex giving them a perplexed gaze.

The security officer asked, "You can't see him?"

The helm officer shook his head. "You all look like crazy fools talking to thin air."

Isabe pointed out, "I just see a grey blob of mess. I don't know what I'm looking at."

Anderson rhetorically asked, "So he's just in our heads? Like the doctor said?"

Trina answered with a clearly impatient voice, putting the pieces together, "Jade said that something was stimulating our brains, the parts that process our visual and audio senses. It's making us think we're seeing it. It probably already knew how to influence Tori's brain because she's Klingon, learned about our brains from the survey team's stay over the last two weeks, but Isabe's brain is different from human and centauran brains, so it still hasn't gotten it quite right with her and Rex doesn't have one in the first place."

Rex shouted, clearly offended with the remark, "Hey!"

"I meant organic. It can't stimulate parts of the brain that aren't there." She looked to the others and ordered, "Ignore him and focus on keeping this station afloat while we blast this piece of chizz to Hell."

Tori and Rex turned back to the computer stations while Trina and the marines turned back into the office and raised their phaser carbines towards the computer station.

The grey figure shouted, "You can't ignore me! This is my station… I am the station!"

Trina snapped around and shouted, "Who wants to try to prevent us from saving you! You may not like us—Hell, you want to kill us all, but I didn't realize a computer could be suicidal in the process!"

The image of the A.I. looked stoic for a moment, as if he was trying to process her words and working out the logical conclusion. He answered in a curt voice, "I'd rather die than let a bunch of scavengers have this station."

"Okay, if you feel that way…" Trina flippantly answered and walked further into the office and saw the security station with lights blinking and actively humming, showing that it was active.

Trina called out to her sister, "Is this part of the main computer?"

"No, just connected to it. Disabling it shouldn't interfere with the other systems."

"Good, so I'm going to blast it to bits."

The grey figured approach them and demanded, "No! You can't do that!"

"You want to murder us! Watch me."

She and the marines turned to face the station, but the next moment to their eyes, a Kzinti and a Wasp formed in front of them: a seven foot muscular feline creature with human proportions stood on its hind legs and a fierce expression on its face; and an insect creature standing on two legs at about six feet.

Isabe flinched, but stood her ground. The image of the Wasp with all the stories signaled a primal reaction of flight or fight response for Trina and Anderson. However, all three were heavily armed, so they picked fight.

They raised their phasers, ready to blast through them to get to the station. They fired a rapid series of blue streams into the figures that were ready to charge them. The computer imprinted on them that the shots went through them, but it did no good as the shots went into the console, punching holes into the metal shell and causing it to internally blow apart.

"NOOOoooo…" the figure cried for a moment then ceased to exist.

Tori shouted out, "That did it! All the security protocols have just ceased."

Trina whipped around and walked back into the ops center, ordering in the process, "Then disconnect those pods."

Rex pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. "Tori, we're going to release a pod, so watch out."

* * *

Inside one of the pods, the lights switched to a soft green hue that blinked with a high pitch whine to warn anyone inside that the massive docking clamps were disconnecting from the station. The doors on the station and the pod sealed shut, maintaining atmosphere before the clamps disengaged at once and a short burst of unneeded thrusters to usually give it an impulse to move away from the station. However, the station's rotation gave the pod enough centripetal force to drift away and from the direction it was pointing and flung away from the planet. Whether it had enough momentum to escape orbit was in doubt, but of no concern as the station and the Tori flew past it.

Ops Center

Tori grinned as her fingertips glided across the control surface of the PADD. "Okay, that's one and…"

Everyone glanced up at the panoramic view screens and saw a sudden shift in the gases conforming around the antigravity bubble and the cargo cylinder with its attached cube holds floating away from the station and sinking. In actuality, they weren't so much sinking, but the station rising.

Rex picked up as he manipulated the station keeping controls, "…we're stabilizing and leveling off. Great job sweet cheeks."

The computer science officer turned a curious look to Rex, feeling a hint of blush at what she assumed was a compliment. She shook it off then looked back at the monitor. "We just have to disconnect the other one and make sure you pick the right one. Just hold us steady so we can release."

Rex tapped the controls to maintain 'thrust' of the antigravity bubble, allowing them to keep the power level stable and not flood the compartment with radiation and keeping them level for a few more seconds.

Cargo Hold

Jade's eyes darted around then looked to Benson and asked, "Where did they go?"

Benson paused in bracing his shoulder under the bent metal slap to push with his knees to get the crate to lift just enough to shove one of the cut pieces of metal under it and the left hand crate. He glanced around to see that the image of his father-in-law had disappeared.

"I don't know and I don't care," Benson muttered as he started back pushing on the metal plate, getting the crate to lift enough to shove in one of the pieces he had cut. He sighed in satisfaction as he was able to get the piece between the lever and bottom crate. He took a breath then pushed up again, lifting the crate just a little more again then shoved another piece between it and the first metal piece. He repeated the process several more times, getting a piece of metal between the slaps of metals and taking a breath and starting it all over again.

After about a half a dozen pieces, he had lifted the crate about two inches off the bottom crate.

Jade sighed out, finding it a little easier to breath and the pressure off her hip.

Benson shifted on his knees to get above her shoulders and gripped under her armpits and started scooting back, dragging her out from under the crate.

The doctor closed her eyes and clenched her teeth as she felt a sharp pain in her hip and pricking feeling down her leg as the blood started flowing again, "Ugggh."

He moved back enough to clear her feet from the crate then dropped in his behind, pulling her further up to rest her back on his chest and cradle her in his arms, resting the back of her head on his left shoulder. She glanced up and huffed out several breaths then muttered, "Damn… damn… that hurt…"

He huffed out with a grin, "I thought you liked pain."

She struggled with a laugh, "Only the good kind… only the good kind…"

He lifted his left hand palmed over her forehead then kissed the side of her crown and her responding with a soft laugh and grinned.

His communicator beeped from behind his back. He removed his hand from over her abdomen and reached behind to grab the subspace transmitter/receiver. He pulled it out and flicked his wrist, opening the gold grill. "Benson?"

" _Vega here. We blasted the station's A.I. that was messing with our brains and disconnected the other pods. We're clearing the atmosphere and we have enough thrust to break orbit and get out of the ion interference, but it's going to take a few minutes."_

"Good. As soon as we're cleared of the atmosphere, get the Tori to beam us back."

" _How's Jade?"_

"She's—"

Jade reached up with her right hand, grabbing over the back of his hand holding the communicator.

Benson glanced down to her slightly fearful eyes.

"I don't want to transport like this. I don't want it to put me back together even worst."

"Can you wait that long to get back to the ship?"

"Depends on how fast you can get me back there," she snorted out with a pain filled laugh.

"Vega, I was able to pull Jade out from under the crates, but get down here with anything we can use for a stretcher. We're going to carry her back to the shuttle and fly her back."

" _I'll be right down with Isabe and Anderson."_

Benson answered, "Bring that medkit they have up there with you."

"Yeah… I need some drugs," Jade sardonically snorted out.

The captain rested his communicator gripped hand on Jade stomach and added, "Double time it Lieutenant, double time it."

Jade closed her eyes and snugged her crown against his cheek.

Sickbay  
USS Tori  
Extended orbit around gas

The patient ward of the starship Tori was fairly quiet with the lights turned down to indicate that it was night time, the only way to signify the change over from day to night aboard a starship. The only patient occupying the beds at the moment was Jade, resting comfortably in the bed furthest to the end of the ward as to give her as much privacy and quiet as the staff went about their duties. The only noise in that section was the soft peep of the bio-monitor above her head that displayed her vitals and her steady breathing, but she was beginning to stir. She snuggled back into the pillow and yawned then she started blinking as she returned to the waking world.

She rolled her head to the left, seeing that Benson in casual shirt and blue jeans sitting in a chair next to the bed and lazily reading off a PADD.

She licked her lips and whispered, "Hey."

Benson lowered the pad on his lap and answered in a quiet voice not to disturb the quietness of the room, "Hey."

"You look comfortable."

He lazily shrugged his shoulder and answered, "Well, I didn't know how long you'd be sleeping. You had me a little worry. You slept longer than they expected."

"How long have I been asleep?"

He casually answered, "The last day and a half."

She sat up and asked with a stunned expression, "What?"

"I guess you needed the rest. Your staff tells me that your hip has mended fine and there wasn't any internal injuries they couldn't handle."

Jade lifted the reddish and golden stitched cover, looking under it to her patient's gown and bashfully asked, "So, I'm ah… intact inside."

Benson bashfully cleared his throat then answered, "You're alright. You're going to be able to have little Wests when the time comes."

She dropped the cover and embarrassingly looked to him, not wanting to have to come out and say she was concerned about future reproduction.

The captain tightened his smile and continued, "You should be out of here tomorrow, well out of here as a patient, but back here to work."

She nodded then lifted her chin so she could meet his eyes. She sardonically asked, "So what have I missed?"

"Other than New Years?"

Jade rolled her eyes, groaning in mild disappointment in missing the party.

"Don't worry, some of us were here with you to celebrate quietly…" He added with a boyish smirk, "I made sure you had a New Year's kiss."

She cracked a smile, not exactly sure how he managed that, and asked, "Thanks… what else?"

Freddie sighed then answered, "We were able to get the station into an extended orbit and waiting for a squadron of ships from the Corp of Engineers. Star Fleet decided that the station—what's left of it after jettison two of the pods—was far too valuable to abandon. They're going to probably some top secret facility."

"So command was good with what happened? We lost two-thirds of the station."

He nodded his head to the side and answered, "I had a commodore chew me out for losing two of the cargo pods. I told them the alternative was to lose the entire station and the only reason why I saved what I did was because you were trapped."

"Oh, so blame me?"

"No, I gave you credit in a way. I expect Star Fleet Intelligence to push to give you a commendation."

The doctor rolled her eyes and flippantly replied, "Thanks… so how did he take it?"

"He wasn't happy, but he called back and he was a lot more agreeable and commended me for my actions."

"Why do think he did that?"

"Because… Cat accidentally sent a copy of my report to… your dad. I guess someone called someone to call him and told him that he needed to see the upside of the situation."

Jade sighed, perhaps a little embarrassed by the situation and having to ask, "So mom and dad know what happened?"

He gave a tired smile as he asked, "Do you really think I wasn't going to call?"

"No, but did he chew you out much?"

"Not at all… He knows the dangers of being in Star Fleet. Your mother on the other hand… I'm not looking forward to the message I'm expecting to get from her."

She turned sympathetic smile on him and nodded, muttering, "Never approved of me going into the service…"

"Never really understood why you did either…"

Jade turned a look to him and she could pick up in an instant in his eyes that he was lying, but discussing the truth right now wasn't the time or place. She took a deep breath and forced a smile to asked, "What about the others?"

"The others are fine. After the destruction of the security station—it was an AI that was sending those signals into our brains—our brain chemistry evened out fairly quickly."

"So no more visions of my dad… of Carly?"

"Nope, not since Trina blasted it… she's only in my dreams," he finished with a tired smile.

She glanced away for a second then asked, "Wait, what about Carter? Did you find his body?"

Freddie rubbed his chin and chuckled, "Actually… that's a bit of a mystery… he's alright."

"What?"

"He should be dead, but… the crates landed just right and trapped him in a doom of debris… it seems a bit unbelievable, but… he's alive."

Jade thought about the amazing stroke of luck with the loud mouth marine surviving an avalanche of cargo. She snorted out a laugh and joked, "Maybe the station is haunted?"

Freddie cocked an eyebrow and asked, "And it saved him?"

The bed bound doctor shrugged a shoulder and answered, "Organians saved us…"

The captain didn't give it much credence to the idea with what happened to the survey team.

"What about the survey team? Have you recovered the bodies?"

Freddie took a deep breath then answered, "The engineer trapped in the core, but we're still looking for the last member because we can't account for her."

"Could she have been in the other pods?"

"It's an unfortunate possibility and wouldn't have remains to return to the family. The pods didn't have enough velocity to escape the planet, so they were crushed."

Jade glanced away, only imagining what horrors her fellow Star Fleet officer had to suffer and if she had been alive and trapped in one of those pods as it plummeted into the gas giant. Those thoughts turned to another obvious question and turned her head to meet her friend and captain's eyes.

"If they couldn't have pulled that trick off with dumping more than half the station to save it and… they couldn't have beamed me out… would you have really stayed with me?"

Benson took a deep breath and wore a stoic expression. He answered in a slow, calm and deliberate voice, "Of course I would have stayed."

Jade struggled with a smile and nodded her head then quickly turned it away to avoid his gaze. She tightened her fingers around his fingers for a gentle squeeze.

The pair sat in silence for perhaps a minute, just holding hands and the bio-bed monitor beeping just a little faster to indicate that her heart rate had risen.

The doctor cleared her throat and looked to him with a forced smile, flicking her brow up. "Don't you have a starship to run?"

He got the message that she was trying to shoo him off and he wasn't going to argue with her. "It's Beta shift and Gamma starts in about two hours, so… I guess I should head off and get some sleep. Morning will be here before we know it."

She teasingly smiled, pleased that she won without an argument.

He stood up then leaned over, placing a kiss on her forehead and gave her hand another squeeze. He straightened up and they shared a sweet smile.

He let go of her hand and took a step back. He reached over to the monitor pushed back on the hinged arm and pulled it out to partially wrap around her right side and turning the display to her direction. He softly smile and told her, "Call your parents. Let them know you're awake and okay… and convince your mom not to kill me next time I see her."

Jade rolled her eyes and half smirked before answering, "Okay. You go get some sleep. Doctor's orders."

"You're not cleared for medical duty yet, but… I'll take your suggestion."

"Good, 'night."

"For you, good morning."

They shared a soft laugh then Benson turned and headed out of sickbay.

"Hey, tell them to send me some food! And some coffee!"

He waved over shoulder and answered, "Gotcha."

"And I mean the real stuff from the cooks, not that replicator chizz."

"You can't tell the difference…" he answered while walking out of the room.

"Yes I can," she shouted with a laugh as he disappeared around the corner.

Captain's Quarters

USS Tori

Benson entered his quarters, the standard arrangement for each Constitution-Class ship with a portion divided into a small office with a partition wall behind the captain's chair with a grill partition running from about shoulder height seated to the ceiling, the bedroom/living room and a bathroom behind a closed door.

He took a seat at his desk and pressed the stud under the computer monitor on the desk and called to the bridge, "Bridge, this is Benson, is Commander Shapiro still on duty?"

" _He's in science lab two,"_ the officer of the deck answered him.

"Patch me through."

" _Aye sir."_

A few moments later the speaker whined and Robbie's voice came over the speaker, _"Captain?"_

"I wanted to let you know that Jade's awake."

" _Great, I'll wrap up here and go see her."_

"She's eating by now and I wouldn't want to be in your shoes if I were you."

" _Good point,"_ he answered with an audible sigh.

"Can you swing by and give me a short briefing before I hit my bunk?"

" _Yes sir. Tori and I will be there in a few minutes."_

Benson raised an eyebrow, a little surprised that she was still working. "I'll see you in a few minutes." He turned off the comm then turned to the small food replicator enclave and tapped one of the preset buttons. A few moments later, the protective screen rose to reveal a cup of warm milk. He reached inside to pick up the glass then took a few sips and just relaxed, waiting for his first officer to arrive.

He didn't have but a few minutes to relax as the door chimed and he called out, "Enter."

The doors parted and Robbie and Tori entered the quarters. Benson stood up from his seat and greeted them with a pleasant smile, "Commanders."

Tori bashfully nodded her head and answered with a grateful tone before they got to business, "I wanted to say thank you for coming to get me Captain."

He motioned for them to have a seat in front of the desk as he sat down. "You don't have to thank me Commander. We're Star Fleet… we'll always come and get you."

She nodded her thanks as the three sat down.

Benson started off, "It's my understanding that you were critical in getting the station out of danger and your computer skills are bar none."

Tori bashfully answered, "I think it was more to do with Trina blasting the A.I. that got us over that last hurdle."

"She is very good at her job," Benson answered with a grin.

"So, what progress have you made?"

Robbie answered, "We believe that we have access to all the memory banks of the station. Fortunately it looks like they were in too big a hurry to wipe them clean before abandoning the station."

Tori followed up, "Or simply activate a self-destruct or simple plow the station into the planet."

"Any idea why they didn't? What made them leave so suddenly?"

"Not yet. It's going to take a while to go through their logs. It should be a treasure trove of information on their culture and people and hopefully we can find out why they left."

"I'm sure Star Fleet Intelligence and the GIA will want to take over that, but… until we meet up with them, learn all you can…" He turned his look specifically toward Tori and added, "…and I'm sure that your sister will enjoy a little of your time for a reunion."

Tori nodded her head and replied, "Thank you captain."

"I appreciate the update and I don't want to keep you any longer than I have to and—" He motioned his head to Shapiro. "—and I need to speak with Commander Shapiro about some ship's business, so go ahead and call it an evening. They'll just have to manage without you."

"Thank you again captain," she replied as she got up from her seat. She turned and headed out of the quarters, the hissing of the door opening and closing signaling her exit.

Robbie joked once the doors closed, "She might be better than you with computers."

"I wouldn't doubt it. She's specialized in it while I was only self-taught. I didn't major in it at WI. So you're impressed?"

Robbie chuckled and nodded his head. "Yeah, very impressed. I knew she was good at science, but I didn't know she had those skills at school."

Freddie teased his old friend, "Careful, Cat might get a little jealous."

Robbie straightened up and cleared his throat, fighting a bit of blush that wanted to form on his cheeks. "I wasn't talking about that. I'm talking about her… you know, skills and stuff…"

Benson grinned, enjoying the camaraderie, then answered, "Robbie, she's very pretty, so much so you forget she's a Klingon."

The senior science officer raised a curious eyebrow over the rim of his glasses, unsure what his friend was implying.

The captain rested his forearms on the desk and got to the point, "Are you impressed enough to think she could have activated the A.I. on purpose and covered her tracks?"

The science officer's easy going expression vanished and quickly asked, "Wait what?"

Benson nodded his head to the side, letting the question sink in for the curly haired science officer.

The science officer slumped back in his seat and asked, "You think she's a traitor?"

The captain relaxed back in his seat and casually answered, "I'm asking the same questions that a board of inquiry, command or the JAG core is going to ask, but in a far less subtle manner."

Robbie bowed his head and looked at the desk, thinking on his words then lifted his chin and asked, "Isn't that kind of… bigoted thinking that because she's Klingon?"

Benson raised an eyebrow and rhetorically asked, "That a Klingon could be a Klingon agent? That's a reasonable caution."

"But she's Trina's sister. She was raised Centurean… human, she doesn't even follow their customs. She's Catholic after her father. I've known her for years."

"You didn't know she was Klingon, how well do you really know her?"

Robbie sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, feeling as if he had been slapped.

Freddie continued before his first officer could recovered, "I don't have any contention about her background. She could be as loyal as anyone else, but… you don't take a second look at every Vulcan now wondering if maybe, just maybe they could be a Romulan agent after what happened at the end of last year? Wondering if the Vulcan government—heck, that the rest of the original Federation members—knew that the Romulans were a Vulcan breakaway group since the war a hundred years ago and kept it secret from us just to prevent us from wondering that?"

Robbie opened his mouth and was about to retort, but he quickly shut his mouth. He couldn't argue with the question as finding out the Romulans were simply a parallel group to Vulcans as Humans and Centureans were to one another had sent a ripple effect through the Federation. There were those, some in very prominent positions, accusing the Vulcan government and other ones of knowing the relation between the two peoples for the last century and keeping it secret for nefarious purposes, particularly the most stinging one that the Vulcans had used Humans and Andorians to fight their lost cousins as they leant very little support to the war effort. The revelation put every alphabet soup intelligence agency in a near state of panic wondering who could be a Romulan agent within Star Fleet and in positions of authority within the Federation since there had been no compelling reason to suspect Vulcans of espionage any more than any other person that could be bought off by a foreign power.

The science officer sighed and grasped at straws, pointing out, "But we know her?"

Benson sighed out, "We know Trina, but we don't know Tori. Did you ever really know her if she was hiding this from you?"

Robbie shook his head and took a few moments to think on his words. He glanced up and reluctantly asked, "So what do you want to do?"

"I want you to double-check that she didn't intentionally activate the A.I. to get rid of the survey team so that the Klingons could have the station or sent any messages to anyone else without her knowing."

The reluctant young man nodded and answered with a reluctant tone, "Yes sir."

The captain struggled with a smile and replied, "Good, in the meantime… do you think you have a position in your department for her?"

Robbie blinked then knotted his brow. "Wait? You want to keep her on the ship? After you think she could be an agent?"

"I need to know either way before I let her out of my sight, for the safety of others ot… to make sure her career isn't over."

"Captain… Freddie, I'm not in the spook business. I don't know if I can pull off acting like I'm… not spying on her."

Benson nodded, understanding throwing someone into a task they may not be equipped to handle. "Just act… bashfully goofy as you are most of the time with Cat in public. She'll just think she's intimidating you with her beauty."

Robbie coughed, feeling a smidge embarrassed and replied, "Cat might think I'm flirting with her or I'm really attracted to her."

"It's a hazard of the job."

The response could be described as cold and most likely it was an accurate description about where the importance of Robbie's relationship with Cat fell in relation to Federation security and the question about the loss of four fellow Star Fleet officers.

The blue shirt wearing young man reluctantly nodded and answered, "I understand, but… when this is done, you're the one that is going to explain it to Cat."

"Deal," Freddie answered with a smirk.

An awkward silence fell between the old friends for several seconds before Robbie offered, "I guess I'll see you in the morning."

Benson responded with a half smirk, "It depends on how much longer you stay on duty and someone else has to do your duty shift. I can't have you falling asleep on the job."

Robbie chuckled as he stood up, "Right. Night Freddie."

"Night Robbie," he called out as his friend exited his quarters.

The door closed and Freddie relaxed back in his seat. He glanced over to his right to look at a picture on his desk, seeing the smiling face of his beautiful late wife. He let a sad smile form on his face then closed his eyes, letting his thoughts drift to happier times with her than the twisted images of a long gone people.

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this piece… that took way longer to publish then intended with life getting in the way. Honestly, a good chunk of this was finished in October except the very end with some editing for earlier parts. I do have a few ideas that I've been working on for some future stories in this universe that I hope you'll enjoy and perhaps resolves some of the interpersonal conflicts created in this piece. Thanks again for reading, OneHorseShay.


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